"Now imagine that Netanyahu said those things last night, at the 20th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's murder, in front of the tens of thousands of youth who stood there. Does a sentence like that not injure, cause despair, and lay the groundwork for violence and obliterate all possibilities of normal life? What do young people think when they hear a sentence like that, how can they continue to weave the dreams of their lives here? And why can't the Prime Minister of Israel stand on a stage like this and tell his citizens warm and empowering things.
--Top Yedioth political commentator, Sima Kadmon, asks why, instead of a prime minister who tells them they "will forever live by the sword," they don't have a leader like US President Bill Clinton, who empowered thousands in his speech at the Rabin Memorial last night.

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You Must Be Kidding: 
“I have a fantasy about getting together [former Iranian President] Ahmadinejad, [Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah, [Palestinian President] Abbas and [UN Secretary-General] Ban Ki-moon and taking them on a visit to the new Temple, the Third Temple now being built on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and letting them see the coronation ceremony from there of a new king of Israel. The Vatican is returning the ancient golden menorah and the high priest is rededicating it."
--From supplementary educational materials for a mandatory program at Israeli religious state schools meant to teach children 'longing for the Third Temple.' Researchers fear the curriculum could drive pupils to take violent actions to advance the building of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount.

"You, Israeli reader, should liberate yourself a bit from the Israeli media diet that makes the situation so shallow; you should liberate yourself from the language of the masters of “civil disorders and riots.” Instead, watch the uncensored (video) clips from the “battlefield": soldiers in jeeps running protesters over, a soldier spraying tear gas from point-blank range in the eyes of medics who come to evacuate the wounded. Soldiers setting on a store owner who brings in his wares while clashes are going on, and the soldiers kick him in an orgy of sadism."
--Haaretz journalist Amira Hass writes that the young Palestinian demonstrators with their kaffiyeh, stone and Molotov cocktail should be seen for their bravery and not the highly trained Israeli soldiers in armored jeeps with interrogation rooms and late-night break-ins into homes to pull minors from their beds.

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You Must Be Kidding: 
"It is clear to all that they are not criminals, and even though they deny any connection (to the acts), even if it is determined that deviated from the guidelines, I think it betrays reality for the Military Court to define them as 'dangerous.' 
--The response by the Honenu organization, which defends right-wing Israelis, to the court decision to detain until the end of proceedings the five IDF soldiers who allegedly attached electrodes to a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian suspect’s neck and electrocuted him, even increasing the voltage as the detainee begged them to stop. Soldiers are also accused of filming the act on a cell phone.  

“Enough, enough, enough! We don’t have to wait to reach a state of bloodshed. One can be an MK without being a pyromaniac.”
--Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) calls on his coalition MKs not to visit the Temple Mount. Meanwhile, the Knesset Ethics Committee forbade it and the Police Chief prohibited it.

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You Must Be Kidding: 
Israeli forces detain Palestinian children, aged 7 and 8, outside their home in E. Jerusalem and take them to police station, then release them.

"You want to stop the terrorist – fine, but someone needs to stop and help the wounded. We have a saying – 'we do not leave the wounded behind.' But that is exactly what we have become."
--Sagit Bracha-Eizenkot says Israeli society needs to do soul searching after mob ran after her grandmother's attacker and did not attend to the stabbed elderly woman.

"It will be interesting to see what color she chooses for the leftist patch. And when the Halacha laws take effect, one will also be allowed to stone leftists or find another punishment recommended in the Bible against traitors."
--Tami Arad writes in Yedioth about Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked’s bill to force representatives of Israeli organizations that receive funding from foreign states to wear special tags in the Knesset. 

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You Must Be Kidding: 
“It mainly shows him to be such a marginal figure that there is no concern for his safety. I think he could be sent in a para-glider to the Syrian Golan [Heights] controlled by ISIS. They’ll return him the next day with a request for negotiating their own return to Iraq, if only we take him back. 'Just take him, upon our lives, Israelis, your president goes around the camp shaking everyone’s hands, trying to speak to us in Arabic he doesn’t know, telling us to unite because it’s a shame we are divided thus into tribes.'”
--Recent Facebook post about President Reuven Rivlin, written by newly appointed head of National Public Diplomacy Directorate, Ran Baratz, sparks a storm.

“In the wake of the current radicalization of Israeli policy in various areas, I informed my hosts that I prefer not to be invited to events in my honor at Israeli consulates abroad."
--Israeli author Amos Oz explains why he is quietly boycotting state events.

“What urgently needs renovations is the work ethic of Israeli spokespersons and the relations between the White House and The Prime Minister’s Office. In reverse order, of course." 
 --Maariv’s political affairs reporter Dana Somberg wrote after the Israeli embassy in Washington told her that the reason that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was not invited to stay at the White House’s luxurious guest house was because “it is undergoing renovations.” Somberg checked and found that other state leaders had recently been guests there. 

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You Must Be Kidding: 
53%
--Percentage of Israelis who believe that one must kill a Palestinian who attacked an Israeli even if he were already caught and no longer posed a danger to anyone.

"And you heard people say out loud, fight loudly in the stairwell in the State Department, saying 'We are the United States of America - we will not be ruled whether it’s by domestic constituencies or Israelis!'"
--Laura Blumenfeld, who served as Senior Policy Advisor on Secretary of State John Kerry's Israeli-Palestinian negotiations team from October 2013-February 2015, revealed the Obama Administration's sense of frustration and humiliation in its dealings with the Netanyahu government.

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You Must Be Kidding: 
The Higher Planning Council of the Civil Administration agreed to retroactively approve two settlement outposts, Mitzpeh Danny and Neveh Erez in the West Bank.

 "What kind of love for a child is it when he is sent to raid a Palestinian’s bedroom in some miserable refugee camp? Or when he’s sent to guard settlers who are taking over Palestinian olive groves? And what kind of love for a child is it when a settler mother forces her children to live in a hostile environment? And what about the love, which is the mother of all loves, of a Jewish mother who settles in the heart of Hebron?"
--Haaretz commentator Oudeh Bisharat responds to Jewish accusations that Palestinians educate their children to hatred and to reverence for death.

"You're ISIS with a kippah."
--Zionist Union MK Itzik Shmuli shouts at LEHAVA leader Bentzi Gopstein in a stormy Knesset debate about whether to outlaw the racist organization.

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You Must Be Kidding: 
During his interrogation, the military prosecution’s key witness was presented with seven photos. He had to select the accused, who was female. Six of the photos were of men.