The Arab leaders, they don't have a love affair with the Palestinians or the Palestinian leadership, but the publics have, and they cannot feel safe in their own chairs if they accept Israel, the mistress, so to speak, to acknowledge her as a main, the Unter den Linden, the main road, as long as we are not moving forward with the Palestinians.

I don't feel opportunistic ever, in anything.

But at the end of the day, when the military command looks up, it sees us — the minister of defense and the prime minister. When we look up, we see nothing but the sky above us.

The Israel legendary foreign minister, Abba Eban, used to say that the Palestinians had never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

I can tell you I also smoked cigars 10 years before, and the watch, which is a Patek Philippe - it was my former wife who bought it for me as a gift when I completed my military service. What is all of this about anyway? I'm no wealthier than Bibi Netanyahu or Arik Sharon. I don't feel that I'm more hedonistic than Ehud Olmert, or Yitzhak Rabin or Shimon Peres.

Politics is not about schmoozing, it's about boxing. And you have to enter the arena; you have to come close enough that your face would ready the face of the other guy; and the price is that he can reach your face.

Iran poses the most serious long-term threat to regional stability.