She had not wanted him to but had let him have his way because ever since she was a child she had generally yielded before anyone with strong willpower, especially if it was a man, not because she was naturally submissive, but because strong male willpower gave her a feeling of safety and trust, together with acceptance and a desire to give in.

The Six-Day War laid a foundation of deep hatred toward Israel 50 years ago. I said this at a very early moment back then, when people were chanting about liberating ancestral land. I was quick to say that regardless of the future of these territories, liberated they are not, because the term liberation only applies to human beings and not to land, not to real estate.

I want Israel to live in peace with its neighbors and in peace with itself.

Israel is imperfect, of course it is - a far cry from the monumental dreams of the founding fathers. One of the reasons is that their dreams were unrealistic. They were bigger than life. These were messianic dreams, dreams about total redemption for the Jews, for the world. Such dreams do not come true, not in their entirety.

The Jews have a powerful ally, America, but they do not really have a bigger family in the same way that there is a European family or an Arab-Muslim family. People who fail to understand this ambivalence will never understand this country. They will not be able to understand how Netanyahu could win the last election by saying the Iranians are coming, Islamic State (IS) is coming, the Arabs are coming, and the whole world hates us anyway.

I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.

When I need to take a side, I write a newspaper article and I tell my government, "You should not do that, you should do this." They don't listen to me, but I've been doing this for sixty years now. But, when I write a novel, I am not in that business.