Pessimism is rife in Israel.

What Israel wants is peace with - and the acknowledgment of - all the Arab countries.

The truce brokered by Egypt between Israel and Hamas depends, above all, on the borders between Egypt, Gaza and Israel.

Every Israeli government since 1967, of left or right, has asserted that Jerusalem is Israel's capital and has allowed Israeli Jews to build there.

The conflict between secular Zionism and the settler movement did not appear overnight following Israel's conquests in the 1967 war, for there was an argument that bridged the gap: security.

Harry Truman, who was a Bible-believing Christian Zionist, defied the secretary of state he so admired, George C. Marshall, and won a place in Israel's history by recognizing the new state 11 minutes after it declared its independence in 1948.