A. B. Yehoshua

I was proud my father spoke Arabic fluently - his father sent him to learn Arabic from a sheikh - and we had Arab friends. His task of understanding the Arabs - not only politics but poetry - was very important; he took it as a vocation.

I don't think that when Zionism began there was a claim that we were losing - even in part - our capacity to contribute to other peoples.

The question of boundaries is a major question of the Jewish people because the Jews are the great experts of crossing boundaries. They have a sense of identity inside themselves that doesn't permit them to cross boundaries with other people.

We always knew how to honor fallen soldiers. They were killed for our sake, they went out on our mission. But how are we to mourn a random man killed in a terrorist attack while sitting in a cafe? How do you mourn a housewife who got on a bus and never returned?

I am a serious reader, and I read slowly.

The literary trappings and moralizing of science fiction I find insufficiently compelling.

Israelis are the total Jews.

It's not what the rabbis say that defines Jewishness but what we Israelis do every day - our actions and our values.

The malady of the Jews is that they don't see territory as part of their identity.

So with truth - there is a certain moment when one can say, this is the truth and here I put a dot, a stop, and I go to another thing. A judge has to put an end to a deliberation. But for a historian, there's never an end to the past. It can go on and on and on.

I come from two parts of the oriental community - Jerusalemite and North African Jews.

At the heart of anti-Semitism lies Moses. He made a catastrophic error, a terrible mistake, and all anti-Semitism for two thousand years stems from his misjudgement. Moses said we Jews could remain a people without having a land. He said we don't need territory to hold onto our Jewish identity. This was a disaster.

I admit I think it is immoral for Jews to live in the Diaspora.

Jews outside Israel live in permanent contradiction. I think they should come home.

In my own view, Hamas's frustration derives from a lack of legitimization by Israel and by much of the world. It is this frustration that leads them to such destructive desperation. That's why we need to grant them status as a legitimate enemy - before we talk about an agreement or, alternatively, about a frontal war.

In my DNA, the Zionist gene is extremely strong.

World War II was a trauma that paralysed writers. It was something metaphysical, diabolical.

Israel is too attached to America, too influenced by America. It should be connected to Europe. America is based on mythology - the free man, the individual, the open frontier. Europe is more conscious of history. Take Britain and Shakespeare. You shape your identity through history.

For 50 years - that is, for most of my adult life - I worked tirelessly for the two-state solution in the face of countless frustrations, both on the part of the Israeli governments and the Palestinian Authority.

Let us not forget: The Palestinians in Gaza are our permanent neighbors, and we are theirs.

The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.

This is why I am a Zionist: because Diaspora leads to hatred and the Holocaust.

I only published my first novel at the age of 40. Till then, I wrote short stories.

In a time of crisis, there is rational tendency to turn to the writer.

And this is one of the major questions of our lives: how we keep boundaries, what permission we have to cross boundaries, and how we do so.