If you don't keep giving the Arabs a bloody nose from time to time, the Arab balloon will blow up. We are going to live like this, hacking at each ot… - Ezer Weizman

Memory shortens distances. Two hundred generations have passed since my people first came into being, and to me they seem like a few days. Only two hundred generations have passed since a man named Abraham rose up and left his country and birthplace for the country that is today mine. Only two hundred generations have elapsed from the day Abraham purchased the Cave of Makhpela in the city of Hebron to the murderous conflicts that have taken place there in my generation. Only one hundred fifty generations have passed from the Pillar of Fire of the Exodus from Egypt to the pillars of smoke from the Holocaust. And I, a descendant of Abraham, born in Abraham's country, have witnessed them all.

Today's Israel, with its large influx of immigrants, its economic momentum, the peace accords, should and can reclaim its position as the predominant cultural center of the Jewish people.

We respect our neighboring countries and the culture that surrounds us, and we wish to take up our position among them, but in our own way and with allegiance to our values and culture.