5.6
--Ahead of the Jewish New Year, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics released the latest numbers about the state, revealing that most of Israel is uninhabited. In all of the State of Israel, i.e. inside the Green Line, only 5.6% is built up area - and that number is particularly significant in light of the country's housing crisis and Israel's construction of homes for Jews in the West Bank.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
Parents of grade school students in state-religious schools were outraged to find a comic strip in the journal given to their children depicting the Jewish law regarding a "beautiful captive woman"—in which the woman is presented as a seductress and property of the soldier who captures her.**

“Hamas leader in the West Bank, Hassan Yusuf, who has just been released from 22 months of administrative detention, was quick to share in the Jerusalem Post a proposal for a long-term ceasefire. In Israel, as usual, we do not listen. Even 20 years ago, in early September 1997, we did not listen. At that time, King Hussein of Jordan transferred a Hamas proposal for a 30-year hudna with Israel, but we were busy planning to assassinate Khaled Mashaal. More than three years have passed since Hamas fired a bullet or rocket into Israel. Three years in which the one which calls itself the leading resistance organization of the Palestinians has locked its weapon. If, in the coming year, we go into another unnecessary confrontation in Gaza, it will be more because of us than because of them.”
—Alon Ben-David, military affairs reporter and analyst for Channel 10 News, writes in Maariv that Israel chooses to ignore opportunities for peace with Hamas.*

“It isn’t a constitution they seek, but rather the destruction of democracy and the High Court."
--Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni, a former justice minister, reacted to the proposal by serving Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Education Minister Naftali Bennet to limit the powers of the High Court.

“We don’t perform in the Territories. It doesn’t matter the distance, I don’t enter the Territories. Not even into Jerusalem’s Old City. And why? I don’t go to places where they don’t like me. And the Arabs don’t like me and justly so. Because I am an occupier. So I’m not (going) there.”
—Comedian Gavri Banai reveals his political views in an interview to Maariv.*

"If the American Civil War were being fought today, there's every chance that the Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu would side with the South."
--Haaretz+ commentator Bradley Burston looks at the people who support Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
The IDF Spokesman and Hezbollah PR in a war of words:
IDF spokesman to the Arab press, Maj. Avichai Adraee published a picture of himself holding a sign with the words in Arabic saying: "If you dare, we will surprise you."
Hezbollah responded with posters of their own in Hebrew and Arabic saying: "If you (even) think about it, we will destroy you."**

“We should not be surprised later when they burn or cut down Arabs’ olive trees, when they burn mosques or churches, and when they burn a family in Duma. We shouldn’t be surprised, yes. And the blood of the Dawabsheh family [burned to death in fire by Jewish right-wing extremists] in Duma and the Henkin family, the Henkin couple, which was murdered in a revenge attack [for the murders in] Duma, is on our hands”
—Former defense minister Moshe Yaalon, blamed incitement by right-wing ministers for the murder of the Dawabsheh family and the Henkin family.*

"People don't understand how much corruption affects every one of us. Think about what could have been done with two billion euros instead of it going for a ship deal that is not needed."
--Former defense minister Moshe Yaalon called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to resign in the wake of all the criminal investigations involving him and those around him.**

You Must Be Kidding: 
“It’s like Holocaust deniers, it’s the same thing. They shout about Holocaust deniers in Iran, but they deny more than Holocaust deniers."
--Former chief rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Amar, compared Holocaust deniers and Reform Jews and concluded Reform Jews were worse because they reject traditional Jewish law.