We checked carefully the international law - what does a nation do when terrorists are using civilians to defend their life, as a shelter. And they say you do not have a choice.

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.

My heart goes out to the brave citizens of Syria, who each day risk and even sacrifice their lives to achieve freedom from a murderous regime. We in Israel welcome the historic struggle to forge democratic, peace-loving governments in our region.

Israel is a start-up nation, and I think it can be done in other places. I will do it outside the government. I don't need the government.

The problem of the Middle East is poverty more than politics.

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.

Later on, there were some problems with our navy, so he made me the head of the navy - all things that I hardly knew anything about. I was basically an ignorant young man.