“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.

"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.

"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.

“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, 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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"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.  

"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.

“’I don’t exempt myself and the government of responsibility,’ Netanyahu should have said. Instead, he was quick to explain that the situation is not related to the occupation and the settlements, and he accused Abu Mazen of lies and incitement, as if the trips (Minister) Uri Ariel (who wants to change the status quo) made to the Temple Mount were innocent annual school trips to learn about the land.”
--Uri Segal writes in Maariv that US Secretary of State John Kerry was right: the waves of Palestinian violence will come and go until the Palestinians get a state.

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You Must Be Kidding: 
 “The word ‘peace’ may escape from the lips of the former US president and then what will we do? At that moment, the rally will turn ‘political,’ Clinton will be declared a treasonous, Arab-loving ‘lefty,’ and everything will storm to heaven.”
--Ben Caspit explains how Yitzhak Rabin's assassin succeeded also in rewriting history so that the reason for his death would not be heard.

"It shocks me how the first thing the government did was to deny any connection between the wave of terror and the occupation. That is part of the racism and dehumanization that again turns an Arab into a person whose nature is murderous and who has a perverted sense of morals." 
-Israeli actor Itay Tiran opens his mouth in interview to Yedioth ahead of the broadcasting of the suspense series he stars in. 

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You Must Be Kidding: 
“So it turns out Arabs do good things sometimes.”
--One of many Facebook posts by right-wing Israelis celebrating the death of American-Israeli left-wing activist Richard Lakin, who succumbed to the wounds he suffered from an attack in Jerusalem by two Palestinians two weeks ago. 

“We won’t accept the emerging trend by which only residents of the Territories will get benefits. Likud gives money to settlements at the expense of the Galilee and the Negev. Begin would be ashamed of being in the Likud today.”
--MK Eitan Cabel slams the government for removing periphery communities from the list receiving tax benefits and adding settlements in and around Hebron.

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You Must Be Kidding: 
A Jewish group has offered $500 to any Jew who goes to the Temple Mount and is caught praying. 

"We are getting calls from people who have never approached us before."
--Sivan Hendel, director of the peace education department at the Peres Center for Peace, says the escalating wave of violence between Arabs and Jews has sparked a jump in requests for "peace-related materials" for both Jewish and Arab schools.
 
"The heavy hand of the right will lead to a reality in which my grandchildren won't be able to live here. And that's not because the left has lost its way and not because of the right's pragmatism, but because there's no leadership that's fighting for the future.”
-- Nissim Zvili, one of four men involved in the former peace process who gave an interview to Yedioth about their views of Israel's future.

You Must Be Kidding: 
"The decision was intentionally general and unclear. It wasn't said in what situation exactly one could shoot and in which one not, but the message was clear: it is permissible to use a lighter finger on the trigger without fear of being put on trial."
--Yedioth's Legal Affairs reporter Tovah Tzimuki describes the Israeli government cabinet decision that led to a 'Wild West' phenomenon in Israel. Now Israel's Attorney General is putting things in order with a new guideline on when Israelis can shoot to kill.