"If I had to operate according to media predictions, I would have never been elected. I plan to go on defying such predictions, surprising the media anew, disappointing it and shattering its expectations".
-- PM Netanyahu, speaking after surviving the resignation of Foreign Minister David Levy (The Jerusalem Post, Jan 6)
"No peace, not even a real peace can be achieved with our neighbours at the expense of our own unity."
-- Communications Minister Limor Livnat, addressing American Jewish Organisation heads (Dec 16, 1997)
"We are ready to sacrifice for Palestine with our souls and blood Did you forget the intifada?... I want to tell the people, far or near, that we are ready, that we are a nation of martyrs."
-- Yasser Arafat, addressing Gaza rally (Daily Telegraph, Jan 19)
"The idea of a chosen people is politically criminal, for it has always sanctified aggression, expansion and domination. The idea of a chosen people is theologically intolerable, for if some are 'chosen' that means that others are 'rejected'."
-- Excerpt from an article on the official PA Information Ministry website, written by Roger Garoudy, a Muslim writer currently on trial in France for Holocaust denial. (http://www.pna.org/mininfo/)
"Islam is the fastest growing religion in America today."
-- Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan
(Al-Ahram Weekly, Cairo, Jan 8-14)
"There is no better illustration of the comical one-sidedness of the peace process: Israel's demand for Palestinian compliance with its own written obligations is deemed a form of sabotage."
Commentator Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post, Jan 16)