We believe that settlement expansion policies pursued in recent decades by successive Israeli governments have facilitated the process of de-facto annexation. It has complicated the dialogue between the different communities.

The Israeli public's willingness to enlist, the warm embrace for the soldiers and the residents of the south, and the desire to contribute and to give at any given moment really warm the heart, and it gives all of us strength.

I find that my Israeli background actually helps me to break some boundaries because we don't have such long traditions. We took traditions from Europe, from the Middle East, and we were encouraged to explore and adapt things.

I definitely see myself as an international musician. When I play, I respect the source of the music, whether it's Cuban, Brazilian or Israeli. I try to bring that to all of the music I play. Music has no borders and no flags.

I was a child during the Lebanese civil war, and I remember Israeli bombardments. So growing up, my view of Israel was completely negative. I'm not coming from a neutral place, but with time, I've had to re-examine my thinking.

I want every Israeli child, secular and religious, to know about Moses, about Maimonides, about Yoni Netanyahu, about Hannah Senesh and S. Y. Agnon. I want every child to know how to read the Bible, and know how to make Kiddush.

The claim that Israel seeks to annihilate the Palestinians is simply a lie. Israel seeks to stop rocket attacks and tunnel invasions, and as long as Hamas is dedicated to those actions, they can expect a forceful Israeli reaction.

As leaders, we in Israel must take into account the concerns of diaspora Jewry. Israel is strong enough to take criticism from within the family of Jews who say, 'OK, we disapprove of Israeli policy, but we stand firm for Israel.'

Anybody that's ever been to Israel and to Palestine knows that you can't look at a person and tell if they're Israeli or Palestinian. You can assume. But I've seen Palestinians who look Swedish, and I've seen Israelis who are black.

The values of democracy, brotherhood, and freedom that constitute the building blocks of American society are also shared by Israeli society, together with the faith in man's power and ability to change and influence his surroundings.

When I come to the airport, they always send me with all the other Israeli Arabs to the foreign workers' line. I don't mind. I feel like I belong more with all the people from abroad and the foreign workers than in the Israelis' line.

I heard an Israeli speaking on Palestinian human rights issues, an interesting guy, and he said 'There's no military solution to terrorism. If there were, Israel would be the safest place in the world. But there's no military solution.'

The arrival of thousands of Muslim infiltrators to Israeli territory is a clear threat to the state's Jewish identity. The refugees' place is not among us, and the initiative to transfer them to Australia is the right and just solution.

It sometimes seems that the only plan the Israeli government has for the Palestinians is for them to sit quietly while Israel does whatever takes its fancy, equipped with its army, with laws it promulgated, and with courts it established.

While we were there, we saw first-hand the senseless violence and destruction from terrorist groups that have repeatedly called for the end of Israel. These kinds of attacks are an unfortunate part of everyday life for the Israeli people.

Israel is a wonderful place to be an artist - a place where imagination flourishes. Israeli culture is refreshingly avant garde - making films, music, performance art and visual art that continues to push the envelope, inspire and empower.

I think the attraction to Israeli women stems from the fact that we're exotic and the fact that there are many talented and beautiful women in Israel. I think that there is also greater awareness of Israel than before in the movie industry.

When I started at Baruch in January 2002, I was almost 23 years old. I'd previously spent five years as an officer the Israeli Navy. I did what I thought you were supposed to do at that age - a little studying and a lot of trying to have fun.

Most Americans can't begin to understand what day-to-day life is like for millions of Israeli citizens. We can't relate to hearing sirens go off - notifying us that we have 15 seconds to a minute to seek shelter from a potential rocket attack.

The views of religious-Zionist rabbis are of course worthy of being heard, yet they represent a very defined and very narrow camp within the Israeli spectrum. This is not the way to shape the perception of future division and brigade commanders.

I'm very much Israeli and American; I never was tempted to change my name. Some people suggested I should have a different name, and I said absolutely not. That's the name I inherited, and it's meaningful: Israel is on every cake that I present.

Israel of the coastal plain, where eight out of ten Israeli Jews live far removed from the occupied territories, from the fiery Jerusalem, from the religious and nationalistic conflicts, is unknown to the outside world, almost unknown to itself.

We declared jihad against the U.S. government because the U.S. government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal, whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation.

Wishful thinking won't make the Palestinians an Israeli peace partner, no matter how much President Barack Obama pressures Israel to make concessions; caustically mocking Putin's worldview won't make it any less real or mitigate the Russian threat.

The clarinet is not so dominant in Israeli music as it is in klezmer. I heard klezmer when I was growing up, but for some reason I avoided it. I listened to Louis Armstrong instead. But the sense of melody is the connection between jazz and klezmer.

As a long-time supporter of Israel, I will ensure that our alliance does not waver, and that America continues to support Israeli security, advocate for her on the international stage, and contain the threat from Iran and terrorism across the region.

The Israeli government has proved over the past year its commitment to peace, both in words and deeds. By contrast, the Palestinians are posing preconditions for renewing the diplomatic process in a way they have not done over the course of 16 years.

In September 1993, President Clinton presided over a handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn - the climax of a 'day of awe,' as the press described it.

My parents often wondered why I would grow so indignant at the falsification and exploitation of the Nazi genocide. The most obvious answer is that it has been used to justify criminal policies of the Israeli state and U.S. support for these policies.

Right after the Six Day War, Arafat launched a series of guerrilla operations from East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Acting on a tip, Israeli soldiers stormed the house where he was based, minutes too late. They found his food still warm on the table.

It was actually an Israeli cartoonist, Nurit Karlin, who made me think that I could draw for 'The New Yorker.' I saw her work published in the magazine in the early 1970s - she was the only woman working as a cartoonist at 'The New Yorker' at the time.

The first to grasp how sensitive Israeli public opinion was on the issue of hostages and M.I.A.'s - and therefore what a powerful weapon abduction could be - was Ahmed Jibril, the leader of a faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Israeli society's inability to tolerate even a single soldier held in captivity results in popular movements that have tremendous impact on strategic decisions made by the government. The issue has become a generator of history rather than an outcome of it.

It's not an Israeli model, it's a TSA, screwed-up model. It should actually be the person who's looking at the ticket and talking to the individual. Instead, they've hired people to stand around and observe, which is a bastardization of what should be done.

I've seen with my own eyes what the effects of Israeli neuroscience research is. It was in my congressional district in Philadelphia that ReWalk, the Israeli company that makes the exoskeleton suit that enables paraplegics to walk, carried out their trials.

Let the Palestinians run their affairs: create a situation in which no Israeli soldier will have to maintain public order, whether in Gaza or the West Bank. Let's give it to the Palestinians, as long as there is security for us. No more occupying another people.

Everyone who is critical of Israeli policy is deluged by crazed messages intended to flood their email system or, more insidiously, passwords are accessed and messages sent out under their name! I'm sure it's illegal. It's also an effort to undermine free speech.

In the category of U.S. interest, Israeli intelligence services regularly share valuable and essential information about the Middle East. As the region has all but collapsed under Obama's leadership, Israel has been a reliable, steady, stable force in the region.

I was critical of the Israeli government, however, for not being prepared for the move. One does not uproot thousands of people without planning in advance what will be done with them. This was a political and human error in which the government functioned poorly.

The Israeli military plays more than a critical role in defending the citizens of the Jewish state. It also plays an important social, scientific and psychological role in preparing its young citizens for the challenging task of being Israelis in a difficult world.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of Israeli Jews are not Orthodox, the ultra-Orthodox hold the keys not just to Israel's Jewish sacred places, but to the life cycle events - conversions, weddings, divorces, burials - of the country's more than six million Jews.

We do not know which irresponsible Israeli prime minister will take office and decide to use nuclear weapons in the struggle against neighboring Arab countries. What has already been exposed about the weapons Israel is holding can destroy the region and kill millions.

Palestinian children deserve the same right to be free in their own land as Israeli children in their land. A two-state solution will finally bring Israelis the security and normalcy to which they are entitled, and Palestinians the sovereignty and dignity they deserve.

When I made my first trip to Israel as a member of Congress, not only did I meet with the Israeli president and prime minister, but I also traveled to Ramallah to meet with the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. That's what being a member of Congress is about.

Let me start by saying I wish no country had the need for an army. But in Israel, serving is part of being an Israeli. You've got to give back to the state. You give two or three years, and it's not about you. You give your freedom away. You learn discipline and respect.

Israeli governments cling to the two-state notion because it seems to reflect the sentiments of the Jewish Israeli majority, and it shields the country from international opprobrium even as it camouflages relentless efforts to expand Israel's territory into the West Bank.

Many occasions I've sat down with Israelis to say, where do you see your country in 10 years time, and work me back, so we can figure out the synergies and the connections between Israel and the rest of the Arab world. No Israeli has ever been able to answer that question.

The situation in the region is flammable and may explode at any moment, because of the crucial events and because of the absence of justice in executing the international legitimacy resolutions, regarding the Israeli Arab cause and the oppression on Palestinians by Israelis.

In the suburban Midwestern Reform Jewish world I was raised in, in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, grown men built plastic scale models of Israeli tanks and F-15 jets and displayed them throughout the house, dangling the warplanes from bedroom ceilings with fishing line.

Palestinians also have a right not to have their homes demolished because an occupying power refuses to grant them a permit. Palestinian children should not be shot at or arrested in the middle of the night and interrogated by the Israeli military while terrified and isolated.

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