But The Same Sea is set precisely in this Israel, which never makes it to the news headlines anywhere. It is a novel about everyday people far removed from fundamentalism, fanaticism nationalism, or militancy of any sort.

Israel of the coastal plain, where eight out of ten Israeli Jews live far removed from the occupied territories, from the fiery Jerusalem, from the religious and nationalistic conflicts, is unknown to the outside world, almost unknown to itself.

It is crystal clear to me that if Arabs put down a draft resolution blaming Israel for the recent earthquake in Iran it would probably have a majority, the U.S. would veto it and Britain and France would abstain.

The Bush Administration's failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.

I have always thought that Israel, as an independent and sovereign nation, had a right to defend itself.

But so far, you know who's been violating the nuclear nonproliferation pact day and night? Those who signed it. Iran, Iraq, Libya and Iran violates it while calling for Israel's destruction and racing to develop atomic weapons to that end.

So I think we should stay focused on the real problem in the Middle East. It's not Israel. It's these dictatorships that are developing nuclear weapons with the specific goal of wiping Israel away.

I think that a strong Israel is the only Israel that will bring the Arabs to the peace table.

First of all, Arafat is wrong. Jerusalem is Israel's capital, will never be divided, and will remain the capital of the State of Israel, the capital of the Jewish people, for ever and ever.

However, there is no legal and legitimate state called Israel.

I am against any reconciliation with Israel.

When a peace agreement is concluded between the Lebanese government and Israel, we would surely disagree with the Lebanese government about that, but we would not make any turmoil out of it.

That is why if Lebanon concludes a peace agreement with Israel and brings that accord to the Parliament our deputies will reject it; Hezbollah refuses any conciliation with Israel in principle.

Israel remains a foreign body in this large area, and it always proved that it is unable to coexist with this environment, because the, the scope of the massacres that it has committed does not permit it to coexist.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs can be elected to the parliament in a democratic election.