You Must Be Kidding: 
Israel’s Coca-Cola franchisee contributed 50,000 shekels ($13,850) to right-wing fascist group Im Tirtzu in 2015, Yedioth revealed. In attack social media campaigns it held 18 months ago, Im Tirtzu "outed" individuals associated with Israeli human rights groups as foreign "moles" and attacked several of Israel's most well-known artists, including writers Amos Oz, David Grossman and A.B. Yehoshua, due to their opposition to the occupation.**

"If Trump only understood that this [what Mahmoud Abbas asked for - a two-state solution with E. Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital] is the exact solution Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn’t want and can’t accept, he would've realized at this stage that it would be pointless to dip his toes into the Middle Eastern swamp. But Trump, whose power is in his ignorance, hasn’t studied anything thoroughly and therefore possesses the optimism reserved for people with no knowledge: He doesn’t let the details get in the way."
--Yedioth's Washington correspondent, Orly Azoulay, explains why Trump's approach might work.*

“Not everything in our lives is right or left. The entire right isn’t a fascist right, and the entire left isn’t a traitorous left. If we continue in this unacceptable fashion, we’ll lead to factionalism and bring destruction down upon ourselves,” Edelstein added.
--President Reuven Rivlin said Tuesday at the annual Independence Day ceremony at the President’s Residence.*

"I love Israel even when I can't stand it. If I am destined to fall one day in the street, I want to fall in a street in Israel. Not in London, not in Paris, and not in New York. Here strangers will immediately come and pick me up (and when I am back on my feet there will certainly be those who will be happy to see me fall). I am very scared for the future. I am scared of the state's policies and I am ashamed of them. And I am scared of the fanaticism and of the violence that is becoming common here, and I am ashamed of them. But I'm happy being Israeli. I'm happy being a citizen in which there are eight and a half million prime ministers, eight and a half million prophets, eight and a half million messiahs. Each one of us and his personal salvation, or at least solution. Everyone yells, and only a few listen. It's not boring here. Indeed, it's irritating, outrageous, disappointing, sometimes frustrating and infuriating, but often fascinating and stormy. What I have seen here during my lifetime is much less and also much more than what my parents and what their parents dreamed of."
--An excerpt of Amos Oz's new book, "Peace for Fanatics," which was printed on the front page of today's Yedioth.

"Let us end the violence. Let us break the bloodied chain that will leave us nothing but more bereaved families. So long as we are involved in the thick swamp that is the occupation, so long as we continue to enter another, and yet another, round of combat in the Gaza Strip, we will continue each year to bury young men and women, little boys and girls, in the blood-drenched soil of our joint land."
--Yigal Elhanan, whose sister was killed in 1997 by terrorists, calls on Israelis not to give up on peace.*

Quote of the day:

You Must Be Kidding: 
Israeli NGO Honenu has been providing thousands of dollars in grants to Jewish murderers and terrorists, including to Yosef Ben-David, who abducted 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir from his E. Jerusalem neighborhood, beat him and burned him alive. 

"One of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s great 'contributions' to the Israeli discourse is turning the definition of 'left' into a curse, an accusation and a condemnation.”
--Channel 10 chief international correspondent and Yedioth political analyst, Nadav Eyal, writes about Israel’s poisonous political discourse.*

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