He was the editor of our paper. He created the publishing house in Hebrew. He was - I wouldn't say the "guru" - but really he was our teacher and a most respected man. I wrote for the paper of the youth movement.

Why cross and ocean when you can cross a river? Why should we sail to Washington when we can meet right away 10 miles from here?

You know who is against democracy in the Middle East? The husbands. They got used to their way of life. Now, the traditional way of life must change. Everybody must change. If you don't give equal rights to women, you can't progress.

For many years the stakes were clear. There were the Arabs attacking us and us defending ourselves, so basically there were no real problems [between the United States and Israel]. Now there are many small cells, and each of them can destroy on their own. Some can arrive at New York and kill thousands of people.

Israel is moving from the realm of poetry to the realm of prose.

Look, we have existed for 4,000 years - 2,000 years in diaspora, in exile. Nobody in the Middle East speaks their original language but Israel. When we started 64 years ago, we were 650,000 people. So, you know, we are maybe swimming a little bit against the stream, but we continue to swim.

Palestinians are becoming religiously fanatic. Israel is becoming irrelevant. They do it for religious purpose, fanatic, they want to conquer the Middle East under the command of the Iranians.