I’m not in favor of the government mandating a prayer in school because our country was founded on the fact that no particular religious faith would have ascendance over or preferential treatment over any other.

I think it was fully justified after 9/11 to initiate a military action against Afghanistan, because we hoped to create a democracy, and have a flourishing economy, and to do away with al-Qaida, and to capture Osama bin Laden.

Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.

My constant prayer, my number one foreign goal, is to bring peace to Israel. And in the process to Israel's neighbours.

We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.

At the beginning of this year also, I called upon the North Korean side to open dialog between the responsible authorities of the South and the North at any place, at any time, and at any level, in order to prevent a recurrence of war and to cooperate to speed up the peaceful unification of our fatherland. However, no sincere response has yet been made by North Korea.

We all know grandparents whose values transcend passing fads and pressures, and who possess the wisdom of distilled pain and joy.