Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark.

I don't think a decent person has to choose between being pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. I think you have to be pro-Peace.

I was born and bred in a tiny, low-ceilinged ground-floor apartment.

I would not waste five years of my life in order to send to the Israeli readers a simple message such as, "Let us change a policy or stop the settlements," Or, "Let us strive for peace." This is not what it is about.

In some of the Israeli media, but not all, they read about very nasty things done by Israeli settlers and soldiers to Palestinian Arabs. This is a pain in the neck for many Israelis. They say: Leave us alone, what can we do about it? Or they say: Look at Syria, look at Iraq, the West Bank is paradise by comparison. I was one of the first to say, shortly after the Six-Day War, that occupation is corrupting. It corrupts the occupier and, in a different way, it corrupts the occupied.

My dream is much more modest than the dreams of the founding fathers. My dream is for Israel to live in peace with its neighbors and at peace with itself. This will be sufficient for me.

I prefer to talk about the gift of literature rather than its role or task.