How to create less waste at home and at the office

http://www.fhofficesystems.com/downloads/less_waste.pdf

Google gives five more products the boot

The cuts come after Larry Page announces Google has already cut 20 products

Technology trends and news by Faith Merino

Google is doing a bit of spring cleaning…in…the fall.  Never mind, bad metaphor.  The point is: no sooner did Larry Page announce that Google has already shuttered 20 products and services than the company announced that five more products are getting the boot.

“We aspire to build great products that really change people’s lives,” wrote Google’s VP of Product Bradley Horowitz in a blog post Friday morning, “products they use two or three times a day.”  (Or, as Larry Page would say: “…like a toothbrush.”)

The products on the chopping block include:

1)     Code Search, which was originally designed to help people search for open source code on the Web.

2)     Google Buzz (…crickets…)

3)     Jaiku, which was acquired in 2007 to let users send updates to friends.

4)     iGoogle social features.  Non-social iGoogle features will not be cut, though.

5)     The University Research Program for Google Search, which provides API access to Google’s search results to approved academic researchers.

Most of the products will shut down in January 2012.  In addition to the upcoming cuts, Google Labs officially shuts down today, following the announcement in July.

“To succeed you need real focus and thought—thought about what you work on and, just as important, what you don’t work on,” Horowitz explained.

In yesterday’s earnings call, CEO Larry Page revealed that Google has shut down over 20 products in the last quarter, including Google Pack, Google Notebook, Aardvark, Desktop, Slide, Fast Flip, and more.  Many of the product shutdowns point to Google’s aims to streamline its social efforts by trimming the fat.

Back in August, Google announced that it would be shutting down social app maker Slide just one year after purchasing the company for $200 million.  Slide founder and CEO Max Levchin was ushered into the Google inner circle as a VP of engineering—presumably for his social know-how—but was curiously left out of the Google+ loop.

All of the cuts point to Larry Page’s aim to make Google more efficient now that he’s back in the driver’s seat.  It’s eerily reminiscent of Steve Jobs’s return to Apple, which resulted in a number of products and company divisions suddenly getting the ol’ heave-ho.

Since yesterday’s earnings call, Google’s stock has climbed 5.85% to $591.68

How to Use Secret Facebook Groups to Enhance Your Business

By Phyllis Khare

One of the most underutilized features of Facebook for businesses is the Secret Group.
A Secret Group is easy to create and manage, and it is perfect for small-group interaction.
Keep reading to discover powerful ways these groups could help your business.
Facebook originally created Secret Groups for people to have small, intimate interactions with family and friends, but Secret Groups are also perfect for small businesses, coaches and professional development, like mastermind groups.

Why Secret Groups?

Most people think of Facebook Business pages when they think about Facebook, but businesses sometimes need private spaces for working, coordinating schedules and developing marketing and advertising ideas with a small group of people.

There are three types of Groups on Facebook.

It’s true that G+ (Google+) has created a system of Circles that allow for private conversations, but there are some nice features that Facebook has embedded within Secret Groups that are not as easily utilized in G+ as it currently stands. I’ll explain those Facebook features in a moment.
There are three types of Facebook Groups:

• Public (Open): everyone can see the Group, find it in a search and make posts
• Closed: everyone can see the Group, but only members can see (and make) posts
• Secret: only members can see the Group, see and make posts

But how secret is a Facebook Secret Group?

When you create a Secret Group, no one, except the members of the Group, will be able to find it in a search and no one will be able to find any trace of it on your personal or business Facebook profiles. And Secret Groups are not indexed by Google.
Even if you send someone the URL of the Secret Group, they will not be able to see the Group page. It’s that secret. I have even posted a Secret Group’s URL on a post in another Secret Group and no one could see the actual link at all!
You will get Facebook notifications (and/or email notifications—more on that in a moment) for each post from any member. And those posts will show up in your news feed, which can be a bit confusing until you notice the little lock icon next to any Secret Group post. So no one can read those, unless they are looking over your shoulder!
And if you choose to receive email notifications of posts to the Group, you will be able to reply to those emails and have your reply go directly to the Group comment for that post.

You will see posts to your Secret Group in your Top News Feed.

Features of Facebook Secret Groups

There are several features that I have enjoyed with my Secret Groups that any small business could use. They are:

• Group Chat: everyone in the Group can use the Chat feature at the same time. So you can have a conversation around complicated subjects to work things out without having to pick up the phone or back-and-forth emails. As far as I know, you can’t use this function on a mobile device (mobile browser or app) at the moment, though.
• Shared Document creation: the whole group can have input on one document and be able to edit what other members have put on it. This feature is similar to using Google Docs, and can be used to refine promotional text, press releases, responses to controversy, etc.

Create a document that all the members can edit.

• Private photo sharing: members can post photos that no one else on Facebook can see. For example, Secret Group members on an advertising team can discuss which images to use on an upcoming campaign. They could create albums with the name of their upcoming advertising campaigns and put several images in them to discuss in the comments or in the Group chat. You can tag the photos, but only with the names of the members of the Group.
• Shared email address: Facebook lets you create a custom email address you can use to email posts to the Secret Group page. You can email text and images. I’ll show you how to create that special email address in a moment.

How can a small business use a Secret Group?

Looking at these features, how can small businesses and coaches use a Secret Group? Here are few ways:

• If you’re a manager with staff who live on Facebook, you can create a Secret Group to keep in touch about hours, shift substitutions, emergencies and all sorts of things that a manager would normally use email or text messages for. Everyone can check the Secret Group posts for morning updates and these messages won’t show up on someone’s personal wall.
• If you have a remote virtual team working on a marketing project, you can use the Group Chat feature to work through ideas that come up randomly through the day that only need a couple of minutes of attention in the same way you would use Google Chat or any IM system.
• If you have a crisis management team using a Secret Group, you can take photos on your smartphone and send them directly to the Group using your private Group email address. You completely bypass the upload and tag process you normally use for Facebook photos. You can create group documents for how to handle a particular crisis for ready reference and be able to announce a group chat time that immediately shows up in the member’s Top News Feed.
• If you are a personal development coach, using the Secret Group system is great, even if it is a bit convoluted to get a fully Secret Group, as you will see. First you need to create a Closed Group. That way you can give out the Group’s URL and then they can click the Ask to Join the Group button (top right of the Group page). You don’t need to be personal Facebook friends with potential members for this to work. Then once everyone is a member of the Closed Group, you can change the Group setting to Secret (how to do that coming up).

Assuming you already have a personal Facebook account, follow these steps to create a Secret Group:

1. Go to http://facebook.com/groups
2. Click the green Create Group button.
3. Give the Group a name and choose the icon with the dropdown arrow.
4. Add any members who are your Facebook Friends by typing their names. You’ll see their account pop-ups; select to add them to the member box.
   If you will be including members who are not your personal friends, make sure you create a Closed Group first, then change it to Secret once all the members have joined.
5. Select the Privacy Setting and click the Create button.

There are only four easy things to do to create a Group; choose an icon, give the Group a name, select members and choose the privacy setting.

You can choose from a standard list of icons for the Group.

Give the Group a name and start to add members who are already your friends.

If you selected to create a Closed Group first, send the URL for the Group to the people you want to invite. The URL will take them to the Group page, where they’ll see an Ask to Join the Group button (top right corner of the page). Once they click that button, you (as an admin of the Group) will see their request on the right column of the Group page.
To approve people who have asked to join the Group, look on the right side of the Group page for the section called Requests. You can click the Add or Ignore link for each person who has asked to join the Group. Once everyone is in, change the Group setting to Secret. You can see how to do that next.

Adjusting Personal and Group Settings

To adjust your personal notification settings for this new Group, click the Edit Settings button at the top of the page, and select if you want to be notified when a member posts, when a member posts or makes comments, when a personal friend in the Group posts or only posts that you have made comments on.
You can also check or uncheck to be sent an email for the notification choice you made, and decide if you want to be sent chat messages. After you have figured all that out, click the Save Changes button. I suggest that you unselect the email notifications and just use the built-in notification system Facebook provides, but that’s my personal preference.

Edit your personal settings for notifications.

To adjust the Group’s settings, look for the link in the right column called Edit Group. When you click this link you have options to:

• upload an image that will be the Group’s profile image
• change the privacy setting (from Closed to Secret, for example)
• select to have only admins of the Group be able to approve members (highly suggested for all Group organizers to check this box)
• create a unique email address for the Group—click this button to create an email address that you or anyone in the Group (if you share it with them) can use to email text and images to the Group wall. You just need to add text before the @groups.facebook.com link. For example, GoldMasterMind@groups.facebook.com. If your proposed name is already taken, you will be able to change it until it is unique.

These are the settings you can adjust for the Group.

Edit the Group settings and create a unique email address for the Group.

Now you can create posts, upload photos, add links, create group documents and have conversations, all within the Facebook “cone of silence” or under the “cloak of invisibility”! I can hear you say, “But nothing is completely secret on the Internet.” I would agree with you, but as far as I can tell, the proverbial cloak works really well with Facebook Secret Groups.
I am a member of a few Secret Groups, one of which contains all the authors (of which I am one) of a certain recently published book. Our Secret Group was a lifesaver during the writing and editing phase of our book.
Because of a tremendous amount of overlapping subjects and text in the book, we were able to sort things out within the Chat, Group Chat, Posting and Image Uploading features of the Group. And we bonded very deeply over posts, comments, rants and raves. Knowing that no one else could see what we wrote helped to relieve the frustration and stress of a very demanding project

If you didn't hear Netanyahu's speech in the UN this is a worthwhile read

Full transcript of Netanyahu speech at UN General Assembly

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the 66th session of the
General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, following Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas' speech.

Ladies and gentlemen, Israel has extended its hand in peace from the
moment it was established 63 years ago. On behalf of Israel and the
Jewish people, I extend that hand again today. I extend it to the
people of Egypt and Jordan, with renewed friendship for neighbors with
whom we have made peace. I extend it to the people of Turkey, with
respect and good will. I extend it to the people of Libya and Tunisia,
with admiration for those trying to build a democratic future. I
extend it to the other peoples of North Africa and the Arabian
Peninsula, with whom we want to forge a new beginning. I extend it to

the people of Syria, Lebanon and Iran, with awe at the courage of
those fighting brutal repression.

But most especially, I extend my hand to the Palestinian people, with
whom we seek a just and lasting peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, in Israel our hope for peace never wanes. Our
scientists, doctors, innovators, apply their genius to improve the
world of tomorrow. Our artists, our writers, enrich the heritage of
humanity. Now, I know that this is not exactly the image of Israel
that is often portrayed in this hall. After all, it was here in 1975
that the age-old yearning of my people to restore our national
life in our ancient biblical homeland -- it was then that this was
branded,  -- shamefully, as racism. And it was here in 1980,
right here, that the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt
wasn't praised; it was denounced! And it's here year after year that
Israel is unjustly singled out for condemnation. It's singled out for

condemnation more often than all the nations of the world combined.
Twenty-one out of the 27 General Assembly resolutions condemn Israel
-- the one true democracy in the Middle East.

Well, this is an unfortunate part of the UN institution. It's  the --
the theater of the absurd. It doesn't only cast Israel as the villain;
it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi's Libya chaired
the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam's Iraq headed the UN
Committee on Disarmament.

You might say: That's the past. Well, here's what's happening  now --
right now, today. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the
UN Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organization
presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world's security.

You couldn't make this thing up.

So here in the UN, automatic majorities can decide anything.
 They can decide that the sun sets in the west or rises in the west.

I think the first has already been pre-ordained. But they can also decide -- they
have decided that the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest
place, is occupied Palestinian territory.

And yet even here in the General Assembly, the truth can sometimes
break through. In 1984 when I was appointed Israel's ambassador
to the United Nations, I visited the great rabbi of Lubavich. He said to me
-- and ladies and gentlemen, I don't want any of you to be offended
because from personal experience of serving here, I know there are
many honorable men and women, many capable and decent people serving
their nations here. But here's what the rebbe said to me. He said to
me, you'll be serving in a house of many lies. And then he said,
remember that even in the darkest place, the light of a single candle
can be seen far and wide.

Today I hope that the light of truth will shine, if only for a few
minutes, in a hall that for too long has been a place of  darkness for
my country. So as Israel's prime minister, I didn't come here to win
applause. I came here to speak the truth. (Cheers, applause.) The
truth is -- the truth is that Israel wants peace. The truth is that I
want peace. The truth is that in the Middle East at all times, but
especially during these turbulent days, peace must be anchored in
security. The truth is that we cannot achieve peace through UN
resolutions, but only through direct negotiations between the parties.
The truth is that so far the Palestinians have refused to negotiate.
The truth is that Israel wants peace with a Palestinian state, but the
Palestinians want a state without peace. And the truth is you
shouldn't let that happen.

Ladies and gentlemen, when I first came here 27 years ago, the world
was divided between East and West. Since then the Cold War ended,
great civilizations have risen from centuries of slumber,
hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty, countless more are
poised to follow, and the remarkable thing is that so far this monumental
historic shift has largely occurred peacefully. Yet a malignancy is
now growing between East and West that threatens the peace of
all. It seeks not to liberate, but to enslave, not to build, but to destroy.
That malignancy is militant Islam. It cloaks itself in the mantle of a
great faith, yet it murders Jews, Christians and Muslims alike with
unforgiving impartiality. On September 11th it killed thousands of
Americans, and it left the twin towers in smoldering ruins. Last night
I laid a wreath on the 9/11 memorial. It was deeply moving. But
as I was going there, one thing echoed in my mind: the outrageous  words of
the president of Iran on this podium yesterday. He implied that 9/11
was an American conspiracy. Some of you left this hall. All of you
should have. (Applause.)

Since 9/11, militant Islamists slaughtered countless other innocents
-- in London and Madrid, in Baghdad and Mumbai, in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem, in every part of Israel. I believe that the greatest danger
facing our world is that this fanaticism will arm itself with nuclear
weapons. And this is precisely what Iran is trying to do.

Can you imagine that man who ranted here yesterday -- can you imagine
him armed with nuclear weapons? The international community must stop
Iran before it's too late. If Iran is not stopped, we will all face
the specter of nuclear terrorism, and the Arab Spring could soon
become an Iranian winter. That would be a tragedy. Millions of Arabs
have taken to the streets to replace tyranny with liberty, and
no one would benefit more than Israel if those committed to freedom and peace
would prevail.

This is my fervent hope. But as the prime minister of Israel, I cannot
risk the future of the Jewish state on wishful thinking. Leaders must
see reality as it is, not as it ought to be. We must do our best to
shape the future, but we cannot wish away the dangers of the present.

And the world around Israel is definitely becoming more dangerous.
Militant Islam has already taken over Lebanon and Gaza. It's
determined to tear apart the peace treaties between Israel and Egypt
and between Israel and Jordan. It's poisoned many Arab minds against
Jews and Israel, against America and the West. It opposes not the
policies of Israel but the existence of Israel.

Now, some argue that the spread of militant Islam, especially in these
turbulent times -- if you want to slow it down, they argue, Israel
must hurry to make concessions, to make territorial compromises. And
this theory sounds simple. Basically it goes like this: Leave the
territory, and peace will be advanced. The moderates will be
strengthened, the radicals will be kept at bay. And don't worry about
the pesky details of how Israel will actually defend itself;
international troops will do the job.

These people say to me constantly: Just make a sweeping offer, and
everything will work out. You know, there's only one problem with that
theory. We've tried it and it hasn't worked. In 2000 Israel made a
sweeping peace offer that met virtually all of the Palestinian
demands. Arafat rejected it. The Palestinians then launched a terror
attack that claimed a thousand Israeli lives.

Prime Minister Olmert afterwards made an even more sweeping
offer, in 2008. President Abbas didn't even respond to it.

But Israel did more than just make sweeping offers. We actually left
territory. We withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and from every square inch
of Gaza in 2005. That didn't calm the Islamic storm, the militant
Islamic storm that threatens us. It only brought the storm closer and
make it stronger.

Hezbollah and Hamas fired thousands of rockets against our cities from
the very territories we vacated. See, when Israel left Lebanon and
Gaza, the moderates didn't defeat the radicals, the moderates were
devoured by the radicals. And I regret to say that international
troops like UNIFIL in Lebanon and UBAM (ph) in Gaza didn't stop the
radicals from attacking Israel.

We left Gaza hoping for peace.

We didn't freeze the settlements in Gaza, we uprooted them. We did
exactly what the theory says: Get out, go back to the 1967 borders,
dismantle the settlements.

And I don't think people remember how far we went to achieve
this. We uprooted thousands of people from their homes. We pulled children out
of -- out of their schools and their kindergartens. We bulldozed
synagogues. We even -- we even moved loved ones from their graves. And
then, having done all that, we gave the keys of Gaza to President Abbas.

Now the theory says it should all work out, and President Abbas and
the Palestinian Authority now could build a peaceful state in Gaza.
You can remember that the entire world applauded. They applauded our
withdrawal as an act of great statesmanship. It was a bold act of peace.

But ladies and gentlemen, we didn't get peace. We got war. We got
Iran, which through its proxy Hamas promptly kicked out the
Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority collapsed in a
day -- in one day.
 

President Abbas just said on this podium that the Palestinians are
armed only with their hopes and dreams. Yeah, hopes, dreams and 10,000
missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran, not to mention the river
of lethal weapons now flowing into Gaza from the Sinai, from Libya,
and from elsewhere.

Thousands of missiles have already rained down on our cities. So you
might understand that, given all this, Israelis rightly ask:
What's to prevent this from happening again in the West Bank? See, most of our
major cities in the south of the country are within a few dozen
kilometers from Gaza. But in the center of the country, opposite the
West Bank, our cities are a few hundred meters or at most a few
kilometers away from the edge of the West Bank.

So I want to ask you. Would any of you -- would any of you bring
danger so close to your cities, to your families? Would you act so
recklessly with the lives of your citizens? Israel is prepared
to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but we're not prepared to have
another Gaza there. And that's why we need to have real security
arrangements, which the Palestinians simply refuse to negotiate with us.

Israelis remember the bitter lessons of Gaza. Many of Israel's critics
ignore them. They irresponsibly advise Israel to go down this same
perilous path again. Your read what these people say and it's as if
nothing happened -- just repeating the same advice, the same formulas
as though none of this happened.

And these critics continue to press Israel to make far-reaching
concessions without first assuring Israel's security. They praise
those who unwittingly feed the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam
as bold statesmen. They cast as enemies of peace those of us who
insist that we must first erect a sturdy barrier to keep the crocodile
out, or at the very least jam an iron bar between its gaping jaws.

So in the face of the labels and the libels, Israel must heed better
advice. Better a bad press than a good eulogy, and better still would
be a fair press whose sense of history extends beyond breakfast, and
which recognizes Israel's legitimate security concerns.

I believe that in serious peace negotiations, these needs and concerns
can be properly addressed, but they will not be addressed without
negotiations. And the needs are many, because Israel is such a tiny
country. Without Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, Israel is all
of 9 miles wide.
 

I want to put it for you in perspective, because you're all in the
city. That's about two-thirds the length of Manhattan. It's the
distance between Battery Park and Columbia University. And don't
forget that the people who live in Brooklyn and New Jersey are
considerably nicer than some of Israel's neighbors.

So how do you -- how do you protect such a tiny country,
surrounded by people sworn to its destruction and armed to the teeth by Iran?
Obviously you can't defend it from within that narrow space alone.
Israel needs greater strategic depth, and that's exactly why Security
Council Resolution 242 didn't require Israel to leave all the
territories it captured in the Six-Day War. It talked about withdrawal
from territories, to secure and defensible boundaries. And to defend
itself, Israel must therefore maintain a long-term Israeli military
presence in critical strategic areas in the West Bank.

I explained this to President Abbas. He answered that if a Palestinian
state was to be a sovereign country, it could never accept such
arrangements. Why not? America has had troops in Japan, Germany and
South Korea for more than a half a century. Britain has had an
airspace in Cyprus or rather an air base in Cyprus. France has forces
in three independent African nations. None of these states claim that
they're not sovereign countries.

And there are many other vital security issues that also must be
addressed. Take the issue of airspace. Again, Israel's small
dimensions create huge security problems. America can be crossed by
jet airplane in six hours. To fly across Israel, it takes three
minutes. So is Israel's tiny airspace to be chopped in half and given
to a Palestinian state not at peace with Israel?

Our major international airport is a few kilometers away from
the West Bank. Without peace, will our planes become targets for antiaircraft
missiles placed in the adjacent Palestinian state? And how will we
stop the smuggling into the West Bank? It's not merely the West Bank,
it's the West Bank mountains. It just dominates the coastal plain
where most of Israel's population sits below. How could we
prevent the smuggling into these mountains of those missiles that could be fired
on our cities?

I bring up these problems because they're not theoretical problems.
They're very real. And for Israelis, they're life-and- death matters.
All these potential cracks in Israel's security have to be
sealed in a peace agreement before a Palestinian state is declared, not
afterwards, because if you leave it afterwards, they won't be sealed.
And these problems will explode in our face and explode the peace.

The Palestinians should first make peace with Israel and then get
their state. But I also want to tell you this. After such a peace
agreement is signed, Israel will not be the last country to
welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations. We will be
the first. (Applause.)

And there's one more thing. Hamas has been violating  international law
by holding our soldier Gilad Shalit captive for five years.

They haven't given even one Red Cross visit. He's held in a dungeon,
in darkness, against all international norms. Gilad Shalit is the son
of Aviva and Noam Shalit. He is the grandson of Zvi Shalit, who
escaped the Holocaust by coming to the -- in the 1930s as a boy
to the land of Israel. Gilad Shalit is the son of every Israeli family. Every
nation represented here should demand his immediate release.
(Applause.) If you want to -- if you want to pass a resolution about
the Middle East today, that's the resolution you should pass. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, last year in Israel in Bar-Ilan University, this
year in the Knesset and in the U.S. Congress, I laid out my
vision for peace in which a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes the Jewish
state. Yes, the Jewish state. After all, this is the body that
recognized the Jewish state 64 years ago. Now, don't you think it's
about time that Palestinians did the same?

The Jewish state of Israel will always protect the rights of all its
minorities, including the more than 1 million Arab citizens of Israel.
I wish I could say the same thing about a future Palestinian state,
for as Palestinian officials made clear the other day -- in  fact, I
think they made it right here in New York -- they said the Palestinian
state won't allow any Jews in it. They'll be Jew-free -- Judenrein.
That's ethnic cleansing. There are laws today in Ramallah that make
the selling of land to Jews punishable by death. That's racism. And
you know which laws this evokes.

 Israel has no intention whatsoever to change the democratic character
 of our state. We just don't want the Palestinians to try to
 change the Jewish character of our state. (Applause.) We want to give up -- we
want them to give up the fantasy of flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians.

President Abbas just stood here, and he said that the core of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the settlements. Well, that's
odd. Our conflict has been raging for -- was raging for nearly half a century
before there was a single Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
So if what President Abbas is saying was true, then the -- I guess
that the settlements he's talking about are Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa, Be'er
Sheva. Maybe that's what he meant the other day when he said that
Israel has been occupying Palestinian land for 63 years. He
didn't say from 1967; he said from 1948. I hope somebody will bother to ask him
this question because it illustrates a simple truth: The core of the
conflict is not the settlements. The settlements are a result of the
conflict. (Applause.)

The settlements have to be -- it's an issue that has to be addressed
and resolved in the course of negotiations. But the core of the
conflict has always been and unfortunately remains the refusal
of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any border.

I think it's time that the Palestinian leadership recognizes what
every serious international leader has recognized, from Lord Balfour
and Lloyd George in 1917, to President Truman in 1948, to President
Obama just two days ago right here: Israel is the Jewish state. (Applause.)

President Abbas, stop walking around this issue. Recognize the Jewish
state, and make peace with us. In such a genuine peace, Israel is
prepared to make painful compromises. We believe that the Palestinians
should be neither the citizens of Israel nor its subjects. They should
live in a free state of their own. But they should be ready,
like us, for compromise. And we will know that they're ready for
compromise and for peace when they start taking Israel's security requirements
seriously and when they stop denying our historical connection
to our ancient homeland.

 I often hear them accuse Israel of Judaizing Jerusalem. That's like
accusing America of Americanizing Washington, or the British of
Anglicizing London. You know why we're called "Jews"? Because we come
from Judea.

In my office in Jerusalem, there's a -- there's an ancient seal. It's
a signet ring of a Jewish official from the time of the Bible. The
seal was found right next to the Western Wall, and it dates back 2,700
years, to the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there's a name of the Jewish
official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu.
That's my last name. My first name, Benjamin, dates back a thousand
years earlier to Benjamin -- Binyamin -- the son of Jacob, who was
also known as Israel. Jacob and his 12 sons roamed these same
hills of Judea and Sumeria 4,000 years ago, and there's been a continuous
Jewish presence in the land ever since.

And for those Jews who were exiled from our land, they never stopped
dreaming of coming back: Jews in Spain, on the eve of their expulsion;
Jews in the Ukraine, fleeing the pogroms; Jews fighting the Warsaw
Ghetto, as the Nazis were circling around it. They never stopped
praying, they never stopped yearning. They whispered: Next year in
Jerusalem. Next year in the promised land.

As the prime minister of Israel, I speak for a hundred
generations of Jews who were dispersed throughout the lands, who suffered every evil
under the Sun, but who never gave up hope of restoring their national
life in the one and only Jewish state.

Ladies and gentlemen, I continue to hope that President Abbas
will be my partner in peace. I've worked hard to advance that peace. The
day I came into office, I called for direct negotiations without
preconditions. President Abbas didn't respond. I outlined a vision of
peace of two states for two peoples. He still didn't respond. I
removed hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints, to ease freedom of
movement in the Palestinian areas; this facilitated a fantastic growth
in the Palestinian economy. But again -- no response. I took the
unprecedented step of freezing new buildings in the settlements
for 10 months. No prime minister did that before, ever. (Scattered applause.)
Once again -- you applaud, but there was no response. No response.

In the last few weeks, American officials have put forward ideas to
restart peace talks. There were things in those ideas about borders
that I didn't like. There were things there about the Jewish state
that I'm sure the Palestinians didn't like.

But with all my reservations, I was willing to move forward on these
American ideas.

 President Abbas, why don't you join me? We have to stop negotiating
about the negotiations. Let's just get on with it. Let's negotiate peace.

 I spent years defending Israel on the battlefield. I spent decades
defending Israel in the court of public opinion. President Abbas,
you've dedicated your life to advancing the Palestinian cause. Must
this conflict continue for generations, or will we enable our children
and our grandchildren to speak in years ahead of how we found a
way to end it? That's what we should aim for, and that's what I believe we
can achieve.

In two and a half years, we met in Jerusalem only once, even
though my door has always been open to you. If you wish, I'll come to Ramallah.
Actually, I have a better suggestion. We've both just flown thousands
of miles to New York. Now we're in the same city. We're in the same
building. So let's meet here today in the United Nations. Who's there
to stop us? What is there to stop us? If we genuinely want peace, what
is there to stop us from meeting today and beginning peace negotiations?

And I suggest we talk openly and honestly. Let's listen to one
another. Let's do as we say in the Middle East: Let's talk "doogri".
That means straightforward. I'll tell you my needs and concerns.
You'll tell me yours. And with God's help, we'll find the common
ground of peace.

There's an old Arab saying that you cannot applaud with one hand.
Well, the same is true of peace. I cannot make peace alone. I cannot
make peace without you. President Abbas, I extend my hand -- the hand
of Israel -- in peace. I hope that you will grasp that hand. We are
both the sons of Abraham. My people call him Avraham. Your  people call
him Ibrahim. We share the same patriarch. We dwell in the same land.
Our destinies are intertwined. Let us realize the vision of  Isaiah --
(speaks in Hebrew) -- "The people who walk in darkness will see a
great light." Let that light be the light of peace.