During informal consultations, I heard many suggestions, albeit no concrete ones, about the manner in which we should proceed.

Palestinian terrorist organizations have time and time again exploited Israeli goodwill gestures and manipulated social realities to perpetuate terror attacks against Israelis.

Now, I prefer that term over magician, because if I were a magician, that would mean that I use spells and incantations and weird gestures in order to accomplish real magic.

We know how difficult it is, after arduous years, to make conciliatory gestures, but such gestures are necessary if we want to hasten the solution of the last conflict in the heart of Europe.

Reinforcing this shift is Turkey s drift toward authoritarianism, which is undermining the viability of its candidacy for EU membership. As for Ukraine, recent gestures of solidarity, such as the signing of an association agreement, are unlikely to develop into anything substantial in the foreseeable future.