"He’s a pro rifleman. All the rest of his body is shouting for help. He’s overpowered a child half of his size, who may or may not have been correctly identified as throwing stones, but the soldier doesn’t know what to do next."
--Haaretz's Anshel Pfeffer describes the absurdity of a situation where year after year trained IDF soldiers hold Palestinian child in a headlock or some similar drama, as if there were a military solution to the conflict.

“Between the headlines and the news that reflect the complex reality, I am encouraged by the joint activities of Palestinians and Jews to save lives, (prevent) cruelty to animals and (to) coexist together."
--Avi Naim, Mayor of Beit Arye settlement, reacts to the joint Palestinian-Israeli operation to save a trapped donkey.

"So as these little people walked this week into the first classroom of their lives, their starting point was extraordinary...There’s only one thing their parents have not given them: a state that functions, a government that governs, a legislature of stature and a national system that can unite the tribes of Israel and steer the State of Israel and guarantee the future of its 6-year-old future adult citizens."
--Haaretz+ commentator Ari Shavit writes that Israelis cannot continue to live well without ethical politics or a high-quality public sector.

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You Must Be Kidding: 
The State of Israel wrote off $76 million in debts that Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights owed.

"From ongoing coverage of your candidacy as prime minister over the years, we have no doubt you are not interested in a public broadcaster that is submissive, and that you believe, as we do, that freedom of the press is one of the bedrocks of an open and democratic society."
--From a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu signed by 15 Israeli diplomatic affairs correspondents, including from the staunchly pro-Netanyahu Israel Hayom daily, after a provision was passed in Knesset late at night when few people were there that prohibited voicing personal views on public broadcast media. 

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You Must Be Kidding: 
A Palestinian man, who the IDF arrested and destroyed his house this week, was released on Thursday after a military judge said there was “nothing” in the file against him.
--Family members of Majdi al-Hija from Jenin refugee camp told Haaretz on Thursday that, when the soldiers came to their house, they told the Shin Bet officer with them that there was nobody in it, but he didn’t believe them. They said they asked him to come inside to check for himself but he refused. Then the troops fired missiles at the house, tore it down with a bulldozer and arrested al-Hija, whose wife and five children are now staying at their grandparents' home. Times of Israel wrote that al-Hija was a 'Hamas affiliate' and the son of a Hamas member in Israeli prison.

"Israel is like family, you love it but you also want it to be the best it can be."
--American-Israeli actress Natalie Portman speaks to Ynet at the Jerusalem premier of her latest film.

“But Israel doesn’t realize that in the moral depths, in the lesson from the horrors of the Holocaust, when we recite ‘Never Again,’ it doesn’t mean only 'never again' will anyone dare to do something to the Jews without getting an appropriate Zionist response.”
--TV reporter and Maariv commentator, Udi Segal, writes about the need to be a good neighbor.

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You Must Be Kidding: 
11,000+.
--The number of demolition orders pending against Palestinian structures in the part of the West Bank known as Area C, which is under full Israeli control, according to data from Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank that was analyzed by the UN.

“Zahalka gave the White left-wing in Israel the biggest most justified and accurate wedgie that anyone ever gave it. I think I’m going to play this video clip on endless loops until Yom Kippur.”
-A Tweet by Maor Zecharia, one of one of many Israelis who reacted yesterday to the response of outrage by Arab MK Jamal Zahalka to Zionist Camp MK Stav Shafir. (More here)

"Ties between Israelis and Arabs don’t have to revolve only around the conflict."
--Israeli neuroscientist Yonatan Lowenstein speaks about his cooperation with an Egyptian neuroscientist, which resulted in joint Israeli-Arab workshops in their field.

68.1.
--Percentage of Israelis who believe the U.S. is committed to Israel's security, according to a new poll.

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