The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a tragedy, a clash between one very powerful, very convincing, very painful claim over this land and anothe… - Amos Oz

I feel much more comfortable talking about the past than about the future. I'm old enough to know that life is full of surprises, and this is true of this country as much as it is true of Israel. I have seen people surprising not only others but even themselves.

(In the book (Dear Zealots: Letters from a Divided Land), you describe your childhood as a “little Zionist-nationalist fanatic.” Your attitude changed because of your friendship with a British policeman. What happened?) Amos Oz: He shared with me different perspectives. He taught me to ask questions: If I were a Palestinian Arab whose family lived here for many, many generations, how would I feel about the influx of Jewish immigrants armed with the Bible and claiming exclusive rights to the land? How would I feel if I were a British [man] who shed his blood in order to beat Hitler, and now he is being labeled by militant Israelis, militant Zionists, as a continuation of the Nazis? Those conversations were eye-openers for me, because this was a kind of language I hadn’t heard spoken around me.

I'd fight again and again if it would be a matter of life and death for the nation. I would not fight, though, for any other cause. I would not fight for resources. I'd not fight for interests. When it comes to life and death, I have always believed that there is one thing in this world which is more ugly, more sordid, than using violence. And this thing is giving in to violence. In this respect, I am a peacenik not a pacifist. And the Israeli Peace Now movement is clearly not a Make Love Not War movement - not one of those.