To me the notion that Palestinians are actually Jews is, I think, quite revelatory and very radical and a possible bridge that has been ignored, I think, in this entire controversy and there's ample evidence to support it.

We've been sending billions and billions of dollars to Israel and Egypt for decades to keep the peace. So as an American taxpayer, I have an interest in this. It's galling to feel that as an American I have a higher stake, a higher interest in peace than you do.

There are many different rivers that lead into despair: there's poverty; there's political repression; there's gender apartheid - there's a sense of culture loss; there's religious fanaticism.

Having written Camp David as a drama, I could see the drama maybe a little more clearly when I wrote the book.

Jimmy Carter is not loved in Israel, and yet no American president gave them a greater gift than Jimmy Carter gave them with peace with Egypt, and the opportunity to make peace with the Palestinians.

It's easy enough to predict that there will be conflict, but you place yourself in a maelstrom when you offer a view about the conflict, and I don't have an investment in one side or the other; I feel compassion for both sides. I've spent a fair amount of time in Gaza and Israel, done a lot of reporting and lived over there, and the tragedy is sometimes overwhelming. At the same time, America does have an investment in what happens.

Chronology can be dangerous. You can get so linear that it becomes robotic for the reader.