"I’m not comfortable being a G-string covering the nakedness of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as he boasts to every ambassador that 'Israel is the only democratic oasis in the Middle East.' I use the G-string as a metaphor because the metaphor of a fig leaf is obvious. The G-string, in contrast, is barely seen and barely felt, and we barely see or feel this democracy, which we are supposed to celebrate."
--Tamer Nafar, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a renowned rapper, writes that - despite everything - Arabs in Israel should vote.*

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"Fifty-two years have passed since the Six-Day War, and the two populations are intertwined. The future of Hadassah Hospital depends on Palestinian export duties, the West Bank cannot continue to exist without Israeli foodstuffs, and we cannot manage without the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who work in Israel."
--Former Israeli peace negotiator and politician, Yossi Beilin.*

“(Ayelet) Shaked and (Bezalel) Smotrich have decided to turn the entire population into settlers. Not only [do they want] religious coercion in the education system, but they want to transfer the citizens of the state to live in the settlements where they can re-educate them in the laws of halacha.”
--The left-wing Democratic Camp blasted the housing plan presented by the far-right-wing Yamina list: to build over 100,000 housing units in the occupied Palestinian Territories for over half a million Israelis.**

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“Ideology with practicality” to help “erase the Green Line."
--Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich explains the thinking behind the Yamina list's housing plan.**

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"Using Palestinians as a tool, as raw material, in the hands of the occupier is a daily event. Any Israeli soldier who has carried out operational activity in the territories knows this. In my unit, for example, we were sent to break into the homes of innocent Palestinians to try out new tools designed for use in break-ins."
--Achiya Schatz, communications director of Breaking the Silence, writes that the Israeli police planting of weapons in Palestinian homes for the sake of an invented story in docudrama is similar to what Israeli soldiers do.*

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On Sunday afternoon, as the soccer players and the audience gathered for the opening of the annual soccer tournament between Palestinian families of Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli police officers arrived at the order of Minister Gilad Erdan and ordered the crowd to disperse, confiscated posters and other equipment, claiming that the event was linked to the Palestinian Authority.**

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"Save us from the stale argument that the solution only passes through the gun barrel."
--Yedioth commentator Ariella Ringel-Hoffman derides the politicians calling for a third Gaza War instead of improving the lives of Gazans.*

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"There is a common denominator between those who want to separate from the Palestinians and perpetrators of terrorist attacks."
--Former IDF commander Gen. (res.) Gershon HaCohen likened the Israeli left to militant Palestinian organizations, saying that they both wanted to prevent coexistence of Jews and Arabs in the West Bank.**

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"Happily, Tlaib came to her senses and didn’t fall into the trap. The shameful proposal to let her visit her grandmother is a manifestation of colonialism: depoliticizing the Palestinian issue, transforming it from a national matter into a humanitarian one, and then portraying the occupation as merciful."
-Haaretz+ commentator, Gideon Levy, on the Israeli ban of BDS-supporting Muslim US Congresswomen from Israel and then the offer of a 'special permit' for Rashida Tlaib.*

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"He who decides who will be the next prime minister is the Holy One. I still don't know that people decide who the next prime minister will be."
--Culture Minister Miri Regev (Likud) reveals her views about democracy.**

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“We send our condolences to his family and to our friends in his yeshiva. As a group, we condemn such brutal actions; such violence hurts all of us. We build bridges between the peoples on this land and we hope that this tragedy will be the last.”
--Palestinian teens, who are members of a Jewish-Muslim interfaith forum that killed Israeli soldier Dvir Sorek was also a member of, wrote in a public letter.*

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“Attempted infiltration of 56 illegal aliens into Israel was thwarted"
--This was the headline of a breaking news story on Maariv and Israel Hayom websites today. The story: About nine or 10 Palestinian families from the West Bank, 56 children, women and men, riding in a rented bus were making their way to an Israeli beach when they were stopped at an Israeli military checkpoint in E. Jerusalem and were searched and held because they did not have permits to enter Israel. The last sentence in the Maariv article reads: “In a search of the bus they found items of clothing and other findings that increased the suspicion that this was a group that was making its way to one of the Israeli beaches.” The driver, a resident of Tzur Baher (Palestinian village in E. Jerusalem) in his 20's, and all bus passengers, 56 children, women and men, were detained in transit for further investigation. (Maariv and Israel Hayom Hebrew)

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“Military orders and regulations forbid the blindfolding of detainees, and action to clarify the rules to the troops acting in the region has been taken and will continue to be taken on a continuous basis.”
--Israeli army was forced to admit that soldiers blindfolded Palestinians against protocol, after Israeli activists petitioned the High Court against the numerous documented incidents of soldiers detaining and blindfolding shepherds, seemingly for punitive purposes, over the last two and a half years.*

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