“I always wanted to write a history of Jerusalem.” — Simon Sebag Montefiore Quote

I always wanted to write a history of Jerusalem.

I am ashamed to say that both my children knew Stalin before they knew Thomas the Tank Engine.

The Soviet Union was designed for Muscovite rule, not for division into independent republics. Yet the latter is exactly what happened in 1991 - and the Kremlin has never accepted it.

I don't feel that Jewish people have a class.

Yeltsin was admirable but flawed, noble but tainted, but in his own negligent grandeur, he undermined his own real achievements - and accelerated their ruin.

I've been mayor of the city of Jerusalem, which is perhaps, in some ways, more complex and more difficult than a ministerial position.

Writing about Jerusalem can be such a minefield.

I was born in Jerusalem with a religious background and a rabbi as a father... it was rather poor, but what we did have, we did have books.

Before I became prime minister, as mayor of Jerusalem, I became world-renowned because of my fight for the unity of Jerusalem.

Arik is suffused with a mystical belief about Jerusalem.