Netanyahu throws Mitchell a curveball
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman each met with American Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell on Thursday. Netanyahu threw Mitchell a curveball: He said that Israel would be willing to talk about a two-state solution after the 'Palestinians' accept Israel as a Jewish state. That's a step that the 'Palestinians' are thus far unwilling to take.Some of you may recall that Ehud Olmert made the same demand at Annapolis (albeit not as a precondition to discussing a 'two-state solution'), but the 'Palestinians' rejected it, because it would mean giving up their hopes of either recovering all of the land 'from the River to the Sea' and of flooding what remains of Israel after a 'two-state solution' with 'refugees' who would overwhelm Israel demographically. More here.
Moreover, you may recall that while the PLO accepted Israel as a Jewish state as part of the Oslo Declaration of Principles, Fatah never did so.
While the Obama administration is unlikely to accept making 'Palestinian' acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state a precondition to negotiations on the 'two-state solution,' the argument is likely to strike a responsive cord in the halls of Congress and with those Americans who haven't been so blinded by 'hope and change' to disparage freedom and democracy. They are Netanyahu's audience.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:24 PM
7 Comments:
Baruch HaShem - this is the best news I could reasonably expect to hear. It should also appeal to Obama, who is just as clever in making shows of being "reasonable", when he's really going to do just as he wants, anyway.
May it never be that we give in to these foolish demands that go against the biblical mandate to settle the land! Let's do the biblical thing for a "change."
I think it is time for hope and change.
First, lets change what hasn't been working so well for the past 16 years. Lets stop negotiating with people who want to kill us and throw us off our land. Lets change our posture from willing to accommodate reasonable discussions to being as unmovable as our negotiating "partners". Lets change posture from being willing to give up what is legally and rightfully ours, to a posture of, if you want something you are going to start by demonstrating why you deserve it. And even then, lets change our willingness to give away that which is ours, to something ... less.
I hope they like it.
Hope and change.
Coming back on here after Pesach, I think its safe to say that the two preconditions Carl - YES - there were two Israel laid out for any future statehood talks. One is the one you already mentioned and no surprise - the "moderate" Palestinians of the PA have already flatly rejected it.
The other precondition is Palestinian recognition of Jerusalem as the united capital of the Jewish people.
With that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid down the marker that while Israel is willing to talk about "two states for two peoples", it comes with a price the Palestinians have not been willing to accept thus far: accepting the legitimacy and permanence of a Jewish State alongside the one they want. And acceptance Jerusalem is never going to be shared with them.
Gerald Steinberg pointed out in the Jerusalem Post on the eve of Pesach a week ago the Palestinians don't want a state is because they're willing to subordinate their freedom to the goal of the destruction of Israel.
Now that Netanyahu has let the cat out of the bag, there will be no "statehood" talks in the future. And Carl and company - it is important to recall the Palestinians view Jews not as equals or even as human beings but as demonic and animal interlopers whom they will remove they will remove from the land someday.
What is the point of talking to someone who doesn't recognize your rights to the land and more important your right to exist as a sovereign nation? Those were two good curveballs Israel tossed the Obama Administration today.
Heh
This will help immensely in further negotiations. Does help to clarify things now.
Professor Paul Eidelberg: 'Realism'
This should end the useless Road Map exercise.
No entity (state) can enter any form of negotiation without recognition by the Palestinian representatives of the reality of the Jewish State of Israel.
Sine qua non
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