Shimon Peres: The Gaps Have Narrowed

Your idea — your book — " The New Middle East. " Well, what happened to it?
Divisions and wars came from the age when we made our living on agriculture and land. Today, armies cannot conquer wisdom or technology. Knowledge doesn't stop at borders anymore. When a scientist goes through customs, who knows what's in his mind? It's an historic change. There are Arabs—not all of them, maybe not many of them—who are afraid that modernity endangers their tradition. To that I say two things: they cannot make a living on tradition, and they cannot save their young generation from becoming modern. But there's no contradiction between modernity and religion. If you ask me what kind of Israel I want, I'd like to see my country as old as the Ten Commandments and as new as nanotechnology.

© 2008