Gary Ackerman

We should be working together and not at cross purposes.

We need two viable political parties in this country to make our democracy work.

The public is sick and tired of it, as they should be.

Let's discredit the administration instead of 'Let's fix the Middle East.'

To try to blame that on the administration is like me trying to blame President Bush for Pluto being thrown out of the list of planets.

The military relationship between Israel and the United States... has never been better.

I still find it intriguing that people who are such really brilliant thinkers will sometimes reach conclusions that one might legitimately disagree with.

Israel must have the means to defend itself by itself.

Today the Middle East is a very different region than the one I first encountered as a new Member of Congress in 1983.

I have always found that Members of Congress don't get enough credit for being as thoughtful as most of us have been.

Ask not who the guilty party is; it is you. It is us. It is this committee.

The stench of hypocrisy that hangs over this city today emanates from this room.

The corruption and the money from corruption, both under the regime of Yasser Arafat and under the current government of Mahmoud Abbas, seems to center on them and their families acquiring all of this money.

There is corruption everywhere. I think on a scale of all the nations, 1 to 184, I think Sweden or Finland is number one with the least corruption and North Korea is 184.

I would divide the camp up into those who want to help the peace process, and then there is a small splinter group of people who are so blinded in their support, trip over themselves, that say we should do everything we have to do to help…

I believe that the money that we give the Palestinian Authority directly is to pay bills, which means that that money that we give them is really a passthrough to Israel to pay their bills for their electricity so that Israel keeps their…

There was a moment in the recent past when corruption may have actually prevented a breakthrough moment in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

I don't mind betting $10 million with somebody because I don't have it.

These are the people who initially pledged that they weren't going to contest for the presidency and they compromised by going back on what they said they weren't going to do.

So who is going to tell the Egyptians we figured out what they should do?

Sometimes you root for the bad guy. I remember once as a much younger congressman trying to explain my vote before a newspaper editorial board.

If making predictions is a sucker's game, then making predictions about Egypt must be a sort for mad men.

We have an interest in strongly supporting a democratic government that respects the rights of its citizens and rule of law.

I hope to see power handed over to a civilian government that is committed to a pluralistic Egypt that remains an ally of the United States and committed to peace with Israel.