Each time a Palestinian or an Israeli dies, it is terrible. But they have the right to have a funeral, to be buried, to have a place in the memory of the survivors. And then you have these other places - Darfur, Rwanda, even Colombia - where the dead have no faces and literally cannot be counted. Theirs are minuscule lives moving toward imperceptible deaths. For me, it is the essence of tragedy.

The European Union should not be prescribing an identity. We know what that's like, when a government tells its people how it should look; what it should be doing. That's the first step towards totalitarianism.

The euro is a great achievement. It's a symbolic achievement. But, the European constitution was a missed opportunity.

In general, Europeans need to get a wider perspective on the problem of Islamism. Even if the Israel-Palestine question were solved - and I think and hope that one day soon it will be - this wouldn't stop one person from becoming a terrorist.

Europe needs to develop a sense of collective history - we need to write books from a European perspective, to teach it in schools as well.

America creates myths by focusing a lot of energy on its history and using it - - not always, but sometimes - for constructive purposes.

I reject the idea that there is some sort of existential "clash of civilizations." I am an interventionist, but not a militarist. War should always be a last resort.