It's truly unpleasant to see a synagogue burned down, but this destruction was foretold. None of the Cabinet ministers had the illusion that the Palestinian Authority would want, and especially would be able, to save the synagogues from the mob.

During these three months, the prime minister has to make a heroic attempt to complete the negotiations with the Palestinians ... and to initiate early elections.

It's not up to me to list, like a grocer, my achievements in the government and the Knesset.

I was involved in legislating dozens of laws, perhaps hundreds. But my glory didn't lie in legislative work, if there is any glory in it. The Israeli law books are full of laws that aren't enforced anyway.

I believe in something that maybe can be defined as the God in one's heart, in the heart of every human being, but not in a God who sits on high looking down on us and taking care of us and whom we bother with things trivial and weighty so that he will be good to us and arrange things for us here.

I do not believe in the eternity of the spirit. That contradicts my ideology.