Amos Elon quotes:

Hindsight is not necessarily the best guide to understanding what really happened. The past is often as distorted by hindsight as it is clarified by it.

They are mostly Americans and almost all are Protestant. Many have a strong grounding in the Bible. In Jerusalem, they suddenly take off their clothes or shout prophecies on street corners, only to revert to normal after a few days' treatment.

The brief legal emancipation of Jews during the Napoleonic wars released unparalleled economic, professional, and cultural energies. It was though a high dam had suddenly been breached.

Democracies are notorious for a tendency to obey the feelings rather than the mind; thus the nature of democracies often makes itdifficult to conclude a peace after a hard-won war. Generous victors are rare.

Jerusalem has been - and for many, still is - a metaphor for destruction and the vengeance of an offended God. She is the city where believers have killed unbelievers to give life to faith.

In Jerusalem, the various modes of worship essentially stood for the same cause but were equally hateful to one another. They never served as a unifying factor. Their adherents were equally manipulated by the clergies to regard the others as wicked infidels or idolaters. The centuries passed in constant pious agitation and in frequent religious wars.