"For many Israelis, the “recognition-plus" [of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state] demand has taken root not because they are looking for an excuse not to make peace, but, at least in part, because it taps into their longing to not simply be tolerated in the Middle East, but to be embraced, in the region and the world, as a legitimate, indigenous nation, consistent with Israel’s founding Zionist narrative of the return of the Jews to their historic homeland."
--APN's Lara Friedman explains the mindset behind the Israeli and Palestinian narratives and suggests how to unravel the apparent Gordian knot of the demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.*

10.
--The number of days it took 150 Dutch workers to duplicate the most famous parts of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's palace in the Israeli city of Kfar Saba. Tanks and actors to arrive soon.**

50.

--Number of olive trees Yitzhar settlers chopped down Thursday in Palestinian town of Huwwara.**

"It is a stain of dishonor that no members of the foreign service have seen fit to stand up and challenge policies that they know better than anyone are leading Israel to international leprosy and domestic disaster."
--David Landau, former editor-in-chief of Haaretz, writes why Israelis don't need to sympathize with striking Foreign Ministry employees over their low wages.**

"Around halfway in, what was meant to be a fair but pointed indictment of J Street becomes instead a remarkable expose of the odd-man-out bitterness and the burning, bully pulpit venom of marquee personalities in the American Jewish right."
--Haaretz's Bradley Burston writes about the irony of the right-wing funded film meant to convince Jewish Americans to be right-wing.**

“A body that lives off of public funds, without reporting what it does with the money, doesn’t deserve a shekel of our tax money.” 
-- Said Labor MK Stav Shaffir, who leads the fight against transfers tax money to the World Zionist Organization's settlement arm and forced a postponement of the vote.**

"But it isn’t about us. It is about creating an honest conversation regarding some of the most contentious issues facing both Israelis and Palestinians today."
--Zaki Djemal and Yoav Schaefer and four other Israel undergraduates at Harvard write about why they took participants of a tour of Israel and the Palestinian Territories to visit Yasser Arafat's grave.**

"I hope that Migron will become a symbol for settlers (showing) that you can not take control of all the land and every hill - certainly not when it comes to privately-owned Palestinian land."
--Yariv Oppenheimer, secretary general of Peace Now, on the Attorney General's decision not to allow settlers to re-inhabit the Migron outpost, after police discovered the settlers had forged purchase of privately-owned Palestinian lands there.**

"The video was made after years in which the left had become the right's punching bag."
--Peace Now director Yariv Oppenheimer on why he and left-wing MKs made the satirical video that went viral.**