Peace Has To Be Achieved In The Middle East

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Obstacles to peace: Borders and settlements

The BBC News website is publishing a series of articles about the attempts to achieve peace in the Middle East and the main obstacles. Martin Asser looks at the question of Israel's borders and settlements.
In the 1990s Israel agreed borders with Jordan, but not the Palestinians


The modern Israeli state was forged in the fires of the first Middle East war in 1948-1949, but from the beginning it was a state without clear borders.
The fact that complete, permanent borders still haven't been drawn 60 years later is testimony to the rancour of Israel's relations with neighbouring Arab states.
Peace talks have taken place - Jordan and Egypt signed treaties with Israel turning 1949 ceasefire lines into state borders.
But the absence of a final settlement with Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians mean Israel's borders and the state itself remain inherently unstable.
OBSTACLES TO PEACE


History of negotiations
Jerusalem
Water
Refugees
Borders and settlements


In 1948, when British rule of Palestine ended, Israeli forces managed to push most of the Arab forces that joined the war to the former Mandate boundaries, which became temporary ceasefire lines.
The exceptions were what we now know as the West Bank, which remained under Jordanian control, and the Gaza Strip, which was controlled by Egypt.
Thus Israel came into being on 78% of the former Palestine, rather than the 55% allocated under the UN partition plan.
Parts of Israel's central region were just 15km (9 miles) wide, and strategic Jordanian-held territory overlooked the whole coastal region.
Exceptions
Fast forward to 1967, when Israel captured both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as Syria's Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
STABLE AND UNSTABLE BORDERS

Key Mid-East maps


Israeli-controlled land now stretched from the Jordan Valley in the east and the Suez Canal to the west; it completely enclosed the Sea of Galilee in the north, and gave it a foothold on the Straits of Tiran in the Red Sea.
The Sinai was exchanged for peace with Egypt in the early 1980s (at about the time Israel occupied south Lebanon, where it remained until withdrawing unilaterally in May 2000).
So it was more than 30 years after the foundation of Jewish state that it acquired its first recognised international border with an Arab neighbour.
Jordan became the second treaty holder with Israel, agreeing river borders in the north and a demarcated desert border south of the Dead Sea.
The boundary between Jordan and the occupied West Bank was agreed, but "without prejudice to the status of the territory".
But such deals are the exception, and the state of Israel and its neighbours have had to live with the insecurity of moveable boundaries and an assortment of different coloured lines ("green", "purple" and "blue").
Consolidation
Politically, the most important of the Green Lines - as the 1949 ceasefire lines were called - is the one dividing Israel from the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Occupying the West Bank in 1967 was an important strategic gain in Israeli eyes, and successive governments have ignored the Green Line and built numerous Jewish settlements on the territory.
SETTLEMENT FACTS
More than 430,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, alongside 2.5 million Palestinians
20,000 settlers live in the Golan Heights
Settlements and the area they take up cover 40% of the West Bank
There are about 100 settlements not authorised by the Israeli government in the West Bank



Guide: West Bank barrier


The settlements are illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this and has pressed ahead with its activity despite signing agreements to limit settlement growth.
Today, about 400,000 settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The land is strategically significant, but in Judaism is also religiously and historically so.
The first settlers were religious Jews who remained in Hebron after celebrating Passover there in 1968.
The settlement movement has become closely affiliated to Jewish religious nationalism, which claims boundaries of modern Israel based on Genesis 15:18: "God made a covenant with Abram and said, 'To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates'."
On both political and religious grounds, therefore, it is extremely risky for any Israeli politician to dabble in land-for-peace deals or unilateral pullbacks from occupied territory.
This is especially true after the 2006 war over Lebanon, when Hezbollah militants showed the effectives of rocket attacks as a terror weapon from the north, given Israel's vulnerability at the centre.
State solutions
From the Arab viewpoint, the acceptable territorial solution for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement is withdrawal from all the 1967 land.
Saudi Arabia has proposed such a formula in return for Israel gaining normal diplomatic relations with all Arab countries.
The wall could be meant as a future border, but Israel denies it


Israel has sought to ring-fence East Jerusalem from any territorial retreat, and it hopes to annex the largest settlement blocs on the east side of the Green Line, which house a large majority of settlers.
This would involve adjustments to the Green Line, perhaps involving Israel swapping its territory for the settlements Ariel, Modiin Illit, Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion, etc.
Removing thousands of hardline settlers from other smaller, more isolated outposts would be a difficult task, however, even for the most secure of Israeli governments.
Further territorial compromises by the Palestinians (having already been squeezed into 22% of pre-1948 Palestine) could be a bitter pill for their leadership to swallow as well.
Then a Palestinian state could be established in the West Bank and Gaza, from which Israel pulled troops and settlers in 2005.
Not all Palestinians, however, want a two-state solution.
Hamas, which won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election, wants at all costs to avoid a peace deal with Israel that involves drawing permanent borders, because its wider aim is to establish a single, Islamic state within the borders of pre-1948 Palestine.
They argue that such a state, with the return of 1948 refugees, would have an impregnable and growing Arab, Muslim majority, spelling the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
In the long term, therefore, Israel's reluctance to accept the existing Green Line in many ways plays into the hands of militant Islamist groups such as Hamas.

[titus27]

Obstacles to peace: Borders and settlements
The BBC News website is publishing a series of articles about the attempts to achieve peace in the Middle East and the main obstacles. Martin Asser looks at the question of Israel's borders and settlements.


The modern Israeli state was forged in the fires of the first Middle East war in 1948-1949, but from the beginning it was a state without clear borders.
The fact that complete, permanent borders still haven't been drawn 60 years later is testimony to the rancour of Israel's relations with neighbouring Arab states.
Peace talks have taken place - Jordan and Egypt signed treaties with Israel turning 1949 ceasefire lines into state borders.
But the absence of a final settlement with Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians mean Israel's borders and the state itself remain inherently unstable.

OBSTACLES TO PEACE



In 1948, when British rule of Palestine ended, Israeli forces managed to push most of the Arab forces that joined the war to the former Mandate boundaries, which became temporary ceasefire lines.
The exceptions were what we now know as the West Bank, which remained under Jordanian control, and the Gaza Strip, which was controlled by Egypt.
Thus Israel came into being on 78% of the former Palestine, rather than the 55% allocated under the UN partition plan.
Parts of Israel's central region were just 15km (9 miles) wide, and strategic Jordanian-held territory overlooked the whole coastal region.
Exceptions
Fast forward to 1967, when Israel captured both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as Syria's Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai peninsula.

STABLE AND UNSTABLE BORDERS
Egypt-Israel treaty, 1979
Article II of peace treaty defines border along Egypt-Mandate frontier
Jordan-Israel treaty, 1994
Annex I: Border along Yarmouk and Jordan river; Demarcation of frontier from Dead Sea to Gulf of Aqaba



Israeli-controlled land now stretched from the Jordan Valley in the east and the Suez Canal to the west; it completely enclosed the Sea of Galilee in the north, and gave it a foothold on the Straits of Tiran in the Red Sea.
The Sinai was exchanged for peace with Egypt in the early 1980s (at about the time Israel occupied south Lebanon, where it remained until withdrawing unilaterally in May 2000).
So it was more than 30 years after the foundation of Jewish state that it acquired its first recognised international border with an Arab neighbour.
Jordan became the second treaty holder with Israel, agreeing river borders in the north and a demarcated desert border south of the Dead Sea.
The boundary between Jordan and the occupied West Bank was agreed, but "without prejudice to the status of the territory".
But such deals are the exception, and the state of Israel and its neighbours have had to live with the insecurity of moveable boundaries and an assortment of different coloured lines ("green", "purple" and "blue").
Consolidation
Politically, the most important of the Green Lines - as the 1949 ceasefire lines were called - is the one dividing Israel from the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Occupying the West Bank in 1967 was an important strategic gain in Israeli eyes, and successive governments have ignored the Green Line and built numerous Jewish settlements on the territory.

SETTLEMENT FACTS
More than 430,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, alongside 2.5 million Palestinians
20,000 settlers live in the Golan Heights
Settlements and the area they take up cover 40% of the West Bank
There are about 100 settlements not authorised by the Israeli government in the West Bank



The settlements are illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this and has pressed ahead with its activity despite signing agreements to limit settlement growth.
Today, about 400,000 settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The land is strategically significant, but in Judaism is also religiously and historically so.
The first settlers were religious Jews who remained in Hebron after celebrating Passover there in 1968.
The settlement movement has become closely affiliated to Jewish religious nationalism, which claims boundaries of modern Israel based on Genesis 15:18: "God made a covenant with Abram and said, 'To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates'."
On both political and religious grounds, therefore, it is extremely risky for any Israeli politician to dabble in land-for-peace deals or unilateral pullbacks from occupied territory.
This is especially true after the 2006 war over Lebanon, when Hezbollah militants showed the effectives of rocket attacks as a terror weapon from the north, given Israel's vulnerability at the centre.
State solutions
From the Arab viewpoint, the acceptable territorial solution for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement is withdrawal from all the 1967 land.
Saudi Arabia has proposed such a formula in return for Israel gaining normal diplomatic relations with all Arab countries.


Israel has sought to ring-fence East Jerusalem from any territorial retreat, and it hopes to annex the largest settlement blocs on the east side of the Green Line, which house a large majority of settlers.
This would involve adjustments to the Green Line, perhaps involving Israel swapping its territory for the settlements Ariel, Modiin Illit, Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion, etc.
Removing thousands of hardline settlers from other smaller, more isolated outposts would be a difficult task, however, even for the most secure of Israeli governments.
Further territorial compromises by the Palestinians (having already been squeezed into 22% of pre-1948 Palestine) could be a bitter pill for their leadership to swallow as well.
Then a Palestinian state could be established in the West Bank and Gaza, from which Israel pulled troops and settlers in 2005.
Not all Palestinians, however, want a two-state solution.
Hamas, which won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election, wants at all costs to avoid a peace deal with Israel that involves drawing permanent borders, because its wider aim is to establish a single, Islamic state within the borders of pre-1948 Palestine.
They argue that such a state, with the return of 1948 refugees, would have an impregnable and growing Arab, Muslim majority, spelling the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
In the long term, therefore, Israel's reluctance to accept the existing Green Line in many ways plays into the hands of militant Islamist groups such as Hamas.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...st/6669545.stm

Published: 2007/05/25 107:47 GMT

© BBC MMVII

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PrintMailPeace-Processing Our Way to DisasterBy Reuel Marc GerechtPosted: Monday, June 4, 2007ARTICLESThe Weekly Standard Publication Date: June 11, 2007 Resident Fellow
Reuel Marc Gerecht

American foreign policy in the Middle East can produce severe cognitive dissonance. Take Palestine and Iran. The White House's evolving policies toward the Palestinians and the clerical regime in Tehran show how easy it is for history to take a back seat to process, for reality to give way to illusions, and for hope in diplomacy to obscure the need to make serious decisions. The difficulties in Iraq can be blamed for much of this: The administration has been reeling since 2005, first crippled by the hapless strategy and tactics of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General John Abizaid, and now plagued by self-doubt about the war itself and the possibility of maintaining political support at home. Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey, a member of the 9/11 Commission, made the case for the Iraq war simply and eloquently in the Wall Street Journal. Yet the new secretary of defense, Robert Gates, a member of the Iraq Study Group, increasingly reveals that he cannot argue for wars--the one in Iraq and the broader one against jihadism--that he does not appear to understand or believe in.
The administration is tired. Arguments for the war on terror and Iraq that once came easily (if seldom eloquently) are rarely heard now. So we are left to parse the administration's actions for thematic content. It's not a happy task. We'll take the depressing first, leaving Iran, which is with the possible exception of Sunni jihadism the greatest menace confronting the United States, for last.
The West Bank and Gaza are increasingly convulsed by civil strife--in Iraq such violence is sometimes called "civil war"--yet many people, in government and out, think that an Israeli-Palestinian deal is still possible, provided Washington has the will to force Jerusalem to make concessions. Yet the Islamic fundamentalist movement Hamas has grown powerful electorally and militarily by advancing an uncompromising hostility to the existence of Israel. Fatah, the backbone of the now-defunct Palestine Liberation Organization and the political base on which the Bush administration and the Europeans want to build a Palestinian state living in peace with its Jewish neighbor, has grown noticeably more anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic. Competition with Hamas, more popular and more religious, now defines Fatah's themes. Not just on the West Bank and in Gaza, but throughout the Sunni Muslim world, fundamentalism has eclipsed virtually every other rallying cry. Born in anger at the unstoppable bulldozer of the West's seductive and deracinating modernity, Islamic fundamentalism shows no signs of receding in Sunni lands, let alone in Palestine, where the faithful live right next to rich, technically accomplished, and militarily powerful Westerners.
Peace-processing has become an institution in Washington. Among many Democrats and Republicans, it's a reflex.

Peace-processing has become an institution in Washington. Among many Democrats and Republicans, it's a reflex. Normally historically sensitive people will quickly affirm the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio to the spread of religious radicalism in the Islamic world and its now nervous offshoot, Europe. Yet the dynamic unfolding in Palestine--Islamic fundamentalism gobbling up the decaying corpse of secular dictatorship--is what we've seen almost everywhere in the Arab world. In Algeria, Syria, and Iraq, the process has been even more violent than in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel is basically irrelevant to this ongoing collision of modernity and Islam. Still, it is entirely likely that a majority of Palestinians, perhaps a decisive majority, do not want to live peacefully next to a "Western, Jewish-colonial settler state." There is a reason Fatah has moved closer to Hamas ideologically. Religious Muslims, let alone fundamentalists, loathe the idea of a Western, Jewish state in what they see as the Muslim Middle East. As fundamentalism has gained strength in the region, the U.S.-backed dictators and their clientele--the Middle East's peace-processing establishment--have become an ever smaller minority among a more politically faithful majority who are deeply offended by the idea of Israel. What the Bush administration is now halfheartedly and wearily trying to do is restore the ancien régime after 1789.
Fortunately, with the Palestinians, the administration's search for a new policy can't be too detrimental to the United States. The Palestinians have enthusiastically rejoined the mad rush of modern Islamic history. They are no longer a separate, special people. The Palestinians are in the early stages of their "civil war," and it's impossible to know where it will finish--though one could make a decent guess that in these early rounds, Hamas will win and the illusion of a Palestinian partner for peace will end, even for the most committed Americans and Europeans.
What America can actually do in the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio is now irrelevant. What is sad, however, and worrisome, is the extent to which the administration's actions reveal its philosophical crack-up. Where once the administration tried to understand the spread of Islamic radicalism (the president's vivid allusions to American support of autocracy in the Middle East were path-breaking), the administration is now defaulting to language and priorities typical of the decades that the president once criticized. The State Department, a profoundly conservative and cautious institution that, like all foreign ministries, exists to fortify government-to-government relations, has always been waiting to bring back the familiar, comparatively manageable world of Israeli-Fatah negotiations.
The White House, under fewer illusions, may simply want to maintain the appearance of peace-processing for the benefit of transatlantic ties. There is an argument for this, given the essential European role in imposing serious sanctions against an Iran that is pursuing nuclear weaponry. Just a little sop to keep the Palestinian-focused BBC and Bundestag happy. And the Europeans don't require much since the undeniable popular power of Hamas, its hard-to-conceal ugly ethics, and its blatant revulsion for Israel have severely tarnished the once romantic Palestinian cause.
But no more than a sop is justified. The sooner Washington gets beyond the peace process, the sooner both Democrats and Republicans can think more seriously about how to deal with rising Islamic radicalism in the Middle East and the threat it poses to the West. Returning to the pre-9/11 preference for stable Muslim autocracies and the peace process is a dangerous cul-de-sac.

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Barak Obama on the MIddle East


By Daniel Levy | bio
Barak Obama has a big-picture foreign policy piece in this month's Foreign Affairs, building on his Chicago Council on Global Affairs speech of April 23. When it comes to the Middle East Obama has an encouraging message, especially for those of us who dwell on the region. It is still short on detail, but he is thoughtfully staking out a position that is beginning to build a sound intellectual edifice that confronts the Neocons. And he is overcoming some of the timidity that has characterized Democrat Middle East musings since 9/11.


The thrust of the Obama Weltenschaung is a healthy internationalism that not only rejects the temptation to go isolationist after the Iraq debacle, but also seeks to seize anew a foundation for American leadership that is diplomatic and moral rather than exclusively military. On Iraq, in addition to the mandatory call for troop withdrawal, candidate Obama speaks the language of the Iraq Study Group report in endorsing a diplomatic surge.

We must launch a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq, prevent its spread, and limit the suffering of the Iraqi people.

The piece was undoubtedly written before all the recent Pentagon/White House talk of the South Korean model, whereby the US would maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq. In that respect, when Obama writes, "We must make clear that we seek no permanent bases in Iraq," it becomes a kind of pre-rebuttal that merits constant repetition. (For the attention of Secretary Gates, Recommendation 22 of the Iraq Study Group report says the following: "the President should state that the United States does not seek permanent military bases in Iraq." Iraq is not South Korea.)
Obama's criticism of the Bush Administration's neglect of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is refreshing. It demonstrates that he apparently appreciates the broader implications of that neglect for US interests and for regional security. He calls on the US

... to focus our attention and influence on resolving the festering conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- a task that the Bush administration neglected for years.
For more than three decades, Israelis, Palestinians, Arab leaders, and the rest of the world have looked to America to lead the effort to build the road to a lasting peace. In recent years, they have all too often looked in vain.

Again, Obama is long on commitment while short on specifics. However, in articulating such a position, he may be stating the obvious when it comes to the real world, but he is doing something that is considered rather counter-intuitive in the world of US presidential election campaigns.
In yesterday's Washington Post, Fred Hiatt suggested that the foreign policy outlooks of Obama and Mitt Romney (who has his own manifesto in the same magazine) were strikingly similar to each other, and to that of the Bush Administration. Well I didn't see no Romney call for American leadership in ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mr. Hiatt, and I sure ain't seen no such thing from the Bushies.
It is not yet time to be dusting off medals of courage and bravery for candidate Obama, but his call on the Israeli-Palestinian issue for "sustained American leadership for peace and security," and him making this a "personal commitment for the President of the United States" should be music to the ears, not just of sensible folk in the region, but also of Americans who understand the way the region fits together, and who should be sick and tired of being told that there ain't much American diplomacy can do to fix the situation. Obama goes on to call for "tough-minded diplomacy" with Iran and Syria, and a counterterrorism that "draws on the full range of American power, not

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http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6992.shtml

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL:
NO SECURITY WITHOUT GASIC RIGHTS

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http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6992.shtml

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL:
NO SECURITY WITHOUT RIGHTS

After the 6 days war:
Only the president of France, General de Gaulle, moved into political isolation by telling a press conference several months later that Israel "is organising, on the territories which it has taken, an occupation which cannot work without oppression, repression and expulsions - and if there appears resistance to this, it will in turn be called 'terrorism'". This accurate prophecy earned reproof from the Nouvel Observateur - to the effect that "Gaullist France has no friends; it has only interests". And Believe It or Not, with the exception of one small Christian paper, there was in the entire French press one missing word: Palestinians.

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[quote=titus27;5882339]http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6992.shtml

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL:
NO SECURITY WITHOUT RIGHTS

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[quote=titus27;5882339]http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6992.shtml

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66 percent of public dissatisfied with Israeli democracy


Poll by Israel Democracy Institute shows only 21 percent of Israeli have faith in prime minister, most don’t trust military echelon. 73 percent of Jews say Arabs prone to violence, while 55 percent say Arabs 'will never reach Jews' cultural level' Ynet Published: 06.10.07, 01:18 / Israel News


Sixty-six percent of Israelis are not satisfied with the functioning of Israeli democracy, a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute showed on Sunday.

The poll, conducted among a representative sample of 1,203 respondents showed that 70 percent of Israelis feel that politicians do not consider the citizen's opinions.

The survey, which is conducted annually, was carried out by the Guttman Center in three different languages, and with a maximum sampling error of 2.8 percent.

Customarily, the poll's findings are presented in a conference by the president, but it was decided that the poll would be present directly

to the public this year, due to the president's suspension.

The annual democracy index showed that 79 percent of the respondents are concerned with the state's current situation, but a similar number of citizens (76 percent) are proud to be Israeli. Most of the public feels it is inseparable from the State of Israel and its problems, and is willing to fight for the state when the need arises.

Eighty-six percent of the public feels that the government is not handling the state's problems in the right manner, while only 29 percent say they trust the political echelon's statements on security matters.

Many citizens feel that "a few strong leaders could do the country more good than all the meetings and laws" noting a 9 percent increase to 69 percent from last year.

21 percent believe in Olmert
One of the poll's most outstanding findings in 2007 was the 22 percent drop in the public's faith in the prime minister, from 43 percent in 2006, to 21 percent this year.

Faith in the president has also dropped, from 67 percent last year to 22 percent in 2007, and faith in the Supreme Court declined from 68 percent to 61 percent.

Israel Police also suffered a three percent drop in the public's faith, from 44 percent to 41 percent, while the IDF lost five percent of the public's trust, from 79 percent to 74 percent.

While the Knesset also suffered a five percent drop from 79 percent to 74 percent of the public's faith, and faith in the government went down from 39 percent to 31 percent, Israeli media actually experienced a one percent increase in the public's faith, from 44 percent last year, to 45 percent in 2007.

The Supreme Court is viewed by the public as the institute which best preserves democracy, as 39 percent of the respondents agreed. The media came close behind, receiving 34 percent of the public's trust, a high increase from last year's 25 percent.

The public's faith in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's ability to preserve democracy only reached 14 percent, and the Knesset came last at 13 percent.

The Second Lebanon War left most of the respondents agreeing that the state's defense budget should be increased, while only 13 percent said it should be reduced, and 61 percent said they do not trust the military echelon's statements on security matters.

Social budget cuts unjustified
According to the survey, 82 percent of the public feels that social budget cuts for the sake of security are unjustified, while only 18 percent said they were members of social welfare organizations.

Fifty-nine percent of Israelis would like to see more socialistic-economic policies rather than capitalistic.

The poll showed that 79 percent of the respondents did not think relations between the rich and poor in Israel were good, and 66 percent said that strengthening ties between religious and seculars was necessary for real improvement.

The faith Israelis have in the state has also suffered over the years, and reached a low of 31 percent in 2007, still, 65 percent of Israelis believe that the state's citizens would be willing to compromise on important matters in order to reach common ground on which they could all live.

'Arabs are prone to violence'
In Arab-Jew ties, 87 percent of the respondents said the relations were either not good or not good at all.

Some 55 percent of the Jewish respondents agreed that "Arabs will never reach the cultural level of the Jews", while 51 percent of the Arabs agreed that "the Jews are racist".

The majority of both Arabs and Jews (73 percent) said that they had a hard time trusting the other and believed that the other side was prone to violent behavior.

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[titus27]

CONTROVERSY: Who wants peace in the Middle East? —Shimon Peres
There are other problems in the region that Israel — and the world — must face. The Palestinians’ current unity government resulted from Saudi mediation, which came in response mainly to Iran’s ambition to increase its influence, not only in Iraq, but also in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank

Forty years after the Six Day War peace between Israelis and Palestinians seems as distant as ever. Israel still refuses to accept the new Palestinian national unity government as a negotiating partner because Hamas is part of that government. What is the cause of this seeming paradox? Is there any hope?

The Palestinian government is united administratively, but divided politically. The Palestinians have one government with two policies. Politically, Palestine’s Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh remains against recognising Israel and respecting the existing agreements. He declared that he is for the continuation of resistance in all forms. What kind of guarantee of a good faith effort to reach a peace agreement can come from such a stance?

That is the question the European Union needs to ask itself as it debates whether to resume providing financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. The EU should make it clear to Hamas that the Union is not going to finance terror and is not going to finance a refusal to make peace. If the Palestinians want to have European help — which I support completely — it must be ready to make peace, not to break peace. After all, it is not Hamas as a party that is objectionable; what is objectionable are the politics and policies which Hamas pursues. We have nothing against Hamas; we are against their belligerent policies, which service in government has not changed.

There was a time when the PLO held positions that were the same as those of Hamas. Then the PLO changed. If the current Palestinian leadership changes its position, there will be no problem from our side. We will have nothing against negotiations. We are for negotiations. We are for the “two-state solution.” We accept the Middle East “road map.” What we are against is terror.

Where we cannot agree, however, is on a “right of return” for Palestinians. If such a right were recognised, there would be a Palestinian majority instead of a Jewish majority, which would mean the end of the Jewish state. This is a demographic, not a religious, question: an Arab state is where the Arabs are the majority, and the Jewish state is where the Jews are the majority. Indeed, the “right of return” contradicts the very idea of a two-state solution, as it would mean one state — a Palestinian state. Nobody in Israel will accept this.

But there are other problems in the region that Israel — and the world — must face. The Palestinians’ current unity government resulted from Saudi mediation, which came in response mainly to Iran’s ambition to increase its influence, not only in Iraq, but also in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank.

Of course, that issue is completely outside Israel’s control. The ongoing fight in the Muslim world between Sunnis and Shi’a recalls the struggle between Protestants and Catholics in seventeenth-century Europe. So it is little wonder that the Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians, and the Gulf states are seeking to resist Iran’s hegemonic ambitions in the region.

Nevertheless, the stakes are far higher than in the seventeenth century, because Iran represents a threat that combines a fanatic religion with a determination to acquire nuclear weapons. Indeed, Iran is the only country that openly declares its desire to destroy another member of the United Nations. That is a threat that every country is obliged to take seriously. When a country’s president delivers crazy speeches, denies the Holocaust, and does not hide his ambition to control the Middle East, who can guarantee that the threat is not serious?

The issue is not one of restoring nuclear “balance” to the Middle East, as Iran’s leaders maintain. First of all, Israel does not threaten anybody. Israel never said that it wants to destroy Iran; Israel never openly proclaimed that it would enrich uranium and build nuclear bombs in order to destroy another country. On the contrary, Israel has said that it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East. But that does not mean that we can afford to ignore an obvious threat from countries that want to destroy us.

Despite the current unfavourable situation, the path to stabilising the Middle East still leads through joint economic projects. Even now, Israel is planning to build a new “corridor of peace,” which will comprise the Jordanians, the Palestinians, and us. Within the framework of this project, we are seeking to halt the dehydration of the Dead Sea, build a joint airport and a joint water network with Jordan, and develop tourism infrastructure, at a cost of up to $5 billion. We have the donors, so there is no shortage of money to finance our efforts, which, I am sure, will be realised.

Israel wants — indeed, desperately needs — peace and stability in the Middle East, and we will continue to do everything in our power to achieve it. But we cannot reach that goal alone, much less negotiate with those whose idea of a stable and peaceful Middle East is one that has no place for Israel. —DT-PS/HVG


Is called terrorism the revenge of the dispossesed to
the rapacity of the dispossesors.(Confucius dixit)