Shimon Peres

He was the editor of our paper. He created the publishing house in Hebrew. He was - I wouldn't say the 'guru' - but really he was our teacher and a most respected man. I wrote for the paper of the youth movement.

I was learning, as I did in the Ministry of Defense. I never knew, but I always learned.

If you have children, you cannot feed them forever with flags for breakfast and cartridges for lunch. You need something more substantial. Unless you educate your children and spend less money on conflicts, unless you develop your science, technology and industry, you don't have a future.

Bringing an end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians may help the young Arab generation to realise their aspirations. Israel is more than willing to offer our experience in building a modern economy in spite of limited resources to the whole region.

And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment. They abstained in the 1947 UN partition resolution... They maintained an arms embargo against us in the 1950s... They always worked against us. They think the Arabs are the underdogs.

In the Middle East, the conflict today is a matter of generations and not of cultures.

One of the things the United States does well is building coalitions. What the U.S. knows is that if you don't have a coalition with you, you will have a coalition against you. I don't want to see China and Russia on the side of Iran more strongly than they are.

The uprising in Egypt was initiated by the young generation. The uprising achieved two things. One is it made the lives of dictators impossible. Today, if you are looking for a safe job, don't become a dictator.

My goal in life was to serve my people, and the most important service for the Jewish people is building the land, and the basics of building the people and the country is working the land.

The Middle East is ailing. The malady stems from pervasive violence, shortages of food, water and educational opportunities, discrimination against women and - the most virulent cause of all - the absence of freedom.

Israel was born under the British mandate. We learned from the British what democracy means, and how it behaves in a time of danger, war and terror. We thank Britain for introducing freedom and respect of human rights both in normal and demanding circumstances.

In Israel, a land lacking in natural resources, we learned to appreciate our greatest national advantage: our minds. Through creativity and innovation, we transformed barren deserts into flourishing fields and pioneered new frontiers in science and technology.