Of course, extremists will hate it. By contrast, moderates all moderates will accept it, albeit unhappily.

The international community must seek to empower moderates worldwide.

We in Indonesia believe that interfaith dialogue and empowering the moderates can reduce violent radicalism.

We must enhance efforts to promote tolerance and peaceful coexistence by empowering the moderates of our society.

Forget the French Revolution as a model the so called Thermidorian Reaction, when moderates ended Robespierre s Reign of Terror, was an exception to the pattern of modern revolutions. The typical pattern during our living memory is that the hardliners come after the moderates.

On the left, I've plotted the scores for liberals on the right, those for conservatives in the middle, the moderates.

For now, we in Middle Israel must curb our own extremists and hold out for the Palestinian moderates to prevail.

Driven by a common fear of Islamic fundamentalism, and by a false assumption that it is an illegitimate political force, the Middle East s so called moderates have once again gathered at the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el Sheikh, the traditional venue for emergency regional summits, to rally moderates against extremists.

Only hard power can deal with them. But soft power will play a crucial role in attracting moderates and denying the extremists new recruits.

In the Federation, nationalists and moderates held their positions, but all three parties whose support mainly comes from the Bosniak community lost votes owing to low turnout.

Sometimes this involves overt conflict between moderates and radicals within one side, such as when an Israeli religious zealot assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin when peace negotiations were making progress. Sometimes this involves a terrorist attack by radical Palestinians against Israeli civilians, in the hope of provoking an exaggerated violent response from Israel that breaks the process of trust building among moderates on both sides.

But I have begun to wonder whether it will really be possible to achieve peace on this basis. Fatah, and Palestinian moderates like President Mahmoud Abbas, have been totally discredited.

We would recommend the use of interfaith dialogue and cooperation as one means of empowering moderates and as a useful tool to combat terrorism and promote understanding, tolerance and peace in general.

So the moderates are the ones who should get the anti aircraft and anti tank weapons. Having them, their prestige among other fighters will soar, and so will support for their moderate stance.

In short, specific terrorist threats should be fought through narrowly targeted counter terrorist operations, while moderates should undercut extremism through the politics of compromise rather than the false and dangerous delusions of military victory.

We all share a common interest in building a region of tolerance and cooperation a region where the moderates have the initiative, not the extremists, whose violence has set the agenda for so long.

Like Al Qaida and the other organizations in the global network of terror, Hamas seeks to destroy everything that the international community and the moderates in our region seek to build tolerance, democracy and peace.

This will require much work on the part of both immigrants and native Dutch. As long as moderates keep their heads, a new Netherlands may be born out of the terrible events of the past weeks.

So, given that differences in policies as they are implemented have become largely a matter of degree, why do centrist parties remain weak? Why have they failed to unite moderates on both sides of the ideological divide?

But the conflict is also between militants and moderates, fueled by neighboring rulers seeking to defend their interests and increase their influence. Conflicts take place within and between states civil wars and proxy wars become impossible to distinguish.

But the United States, European governments, and Israel should take this opportunity to engage Hamas s moderates and test their flexibility. In the new Middle East, the West s current approach will only strengthen the hardliners in Gaza and elsewhere.

The man who was most responsible for Deng s Open Door policies was none other than Xi s father, Xi Zhongxun. Always a pragmatic Communist, the elder Xi had been the target of several purges under Mao, when relative moderates were frequently denounced as counterrevolutionaries.

But how long will national unity prevail? The scars of colonialism are fresher in France than anywhere else in Europe the country has Europe s largest Muslim minority and, with moderates seeming particularly weak and divided, the extreme right is cresting in opinion polls.

Even the most moderate Palestinians now reject Israeli leftists offers of help in terms of human support against the actions of Israeli settlers or police. The political dialogue between moderates of both camps is mostly dead, and personal contact has become minimal.

While an end to all contacts would probably lead to further radicalization, negotiations and the mere prospect of a future settlement may reinforce the influence of moderates. With historical perspective, lack of proper negotiations has been counterproductive in the North Korean case.

The worst mistake would be to follow the opposite policy an inevitably futile effort to appease the extremists or seek to moderate them. Such a campaign actually disheartens the relative moderates who, feeling sold out, will try to cut their own deal with Tehran.

Most discouragingly, the American assurances will likely discredit Palestinian moderates and the positions they have advocated regarding the need for mutual concessions with Israel. From now on, the Bush statement will strongly affect the framing of the solution to the issues of territory and refugees.

In the early 1970 s, moderates gained by engineering a rapprochement with the US, capped by Nixon s famous visit to China in 1972. Deng was rehabilitated the following year, and in the late 1970 s, after Mao s death, Deng s pragmatists seized control of the regime.

And that message is music to the ears of moderates, who understand that middle class, middle of the road voters are often pivotal in national elections. As populists in the mold of Venezuela s late president, Hugo Chávez, lose ground, a reform minded liberal center has gathered strength.

War is strengthening the hand of those who regard terror as the only effective weapon, thus creating a breeding ground for more violence, insecurity, and extremism across the Middle East. With moderates being marginalized, the long term effect will be to undermine democratization efforts in the region.

If the moderates win, then a Middle Palestine will at last rise to prominence. Paralleling Middle Israel, though perhaps not initially befriending it or liking it very much, this kind of Palestine will be the best news that the Middle East will have had for a long time.

Conversely, if Bush cannot come up with enough Republican moderates in the US Senate they are actually already there, probably and in the US House of Representatives, the letdown and resentment in Mexico (as well as everywhere in Central America, the Caribbean, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia) will be immense.

Conversely, if Bush cannot come up with enough Republican moderates in the US Senate they are actually already there, probably 45 45 and in the US House of Representatives, the letdown and resentment in Mexico (as well as everywhere in Central America, the Caribbean, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia) will be immense.

Despite their travails, only a few thousand of the world s 1.5 billion Muslims have embraced the extremist project of killing infidels and moderates. But, amid the resulting political and religious confusion and, because religious authorities remain silent in the face of Islamist rhetoric no Muslim state can solve its problems domestically.

In the Middle East, US and European officials will continue to resist deeper involvement in regional turmoil this year, leaving local powers Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia to vie for influence. Confrontations between moderates and militants, and between Sunni and Shia factions, are playing out in several North African and Middle Eastern countries.

Of course, persistent swings from parity do not last forever. While movements in macroeconomic fundamentals may lead bulls to bid the value of a currency further above parity, they simultaneously become more concerned about a counter movement back to parity and thus capital losses which moderates their desire to increase their long positions.

The high handed tone of the Hull Note of November 26, demanding Japan s withdrawal of all its troops from China, was a final blow to the moderates in Japan s government, who still hoped for diplomatic negotiations. By this time, many policymakers were convinced that the US was not ready to hear them out.

As one of the players at that summit, I understand the reason for the gap between what was agreed by the moderates and the harsh realities that have driven the extremists forward. The only way Arafat could stop the Intifada and stem the advance of Hamas was through an especially generous peace deal from Israel.

There are now serious concerns that the so called dark greens the harder line faction in Taiwan s pro independence pan green political camp will seize this issue as a stick with which to beat President Chen. As DPP legislator Hsiao Bi khim recently said, the anti secession law will make it very hard for us to be moderates .

At the same time, the global economy and modernization can also promise better education, more jobs and opportunities, and improved health care, and opinion polls indicate that a majority of the region's population desires these benefits. Given ambivalence among Arab moderates, there remains a chance to isolate the extremists and gradually build stable polities with broader participation.

Certainly, the failure of the peace process in the 1990 s, followed by the coming of the second Intifada, appears to have encouraged the radicalization of Israel s extremes while discouraging moderates. And the revival of religious parties in a country created by avowed secularists opened the way for a more politically powerful but also more nationalistic and intolerant setting.

Late this spring, something changed, and within a few weeks moderates made dramatic public advances. The most striking demonstration of this political shift came after an incident in central Java, in which a speech by former President Gus Dur was interrupted by FPI members who denounced him for supporting pluralism and opposing the anti pornography bill.

This alliance of Middle East moderates comes with a price that neither Israel nor the Bush administration seems ready to pay. The Israeli American strategy of driving a wedge between Gaza and the West Bank while shunning negotiations on a peace settlement that could give Abbas the ultimate tool to undermine Hamas is a policy at war with itself.

The war on terrorism is not a clash of civilizations Islam versus the West but a civil war within Islamic civilization between extremists who use violence to enforce their vision and a moderate majority who want things like jobs, education, health care, and dignity as they pursue their faith. America will not win unless the moderates win.

In such chaos, it was difficult to do the reconstruction and development work that could have made Iraqi lives better and attracted support. It is not easy for a marine or soldier to construct a school or clinic when he is being fired upon, or for Iraqi moderates to risk their lives by being supportive when they have no protection against insurgents.