Netanyahu Reaffirms a United Jerusalem and much much more
There is a reason why the Palestinian Authority reacted so negatively to Prime Minister Netanyahu's
comprehensive speech on the Palestinian-Israel conflict.
SAEB EREKAT, SENIOR PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR:
"President Obama, the ball is in your court tonight. You have the choice tonight. You can deal with Netanyahu as a prime minister above the law, close the file of peace tonight and engulf the whole area in the direction of violence, chaos, extremism and bloodletting. The other choice is to make Netanyahu abide by the "road map" plan for peace.
"The peace process has been moving at the speed of a tortoise. Tonight, Netanyahu has flipped it over on its back." NABIL ABU RDAINAH, PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS' SPOKESMAN:"Netanyahu's remarks have sabotaged all initiatives, paralyzed all efforts being made and challenges the Palestinian, Arab and American positions."
The Palestinians understand that Netanyahu is trying to reshape the nature of the debate between Israel and the Palestinians. Gone are the days of unilateral withdrawals, gone are the days of talking without setting Israel's needs clearly on the table, gone are the days when the Arab world sits on the sidelines and washes its hands of the refugee problem
Netanyahu has taken seriously President Obama's call for speaking the truth. Netanyahu's truth is Israel's reality.
While headlines about the speech declare that Netanyahu endorsed a demilitarized Palestinian state his speech went far beyond this point. Netanyahu declared that Jerusalem will remain united under the State of Israel which will continue to guarantee that it will be free and open to all people.
Netanyahu also made it clear that Israel is not a gift to the Jewish people because of the Holocaust. He told the world that Israel has been the homeland of the Jewish people for 3500 years and that is why the State of Israel exists today. Rarely do we hear such Zionist statements from Israeli officials.
In his speech Netanyahu reminded the world that Israel has made concessions to its enemies time and again. And it has received terrorism in return. Israel will no longer go down that path.
Israel is willing and anxious to come to an agreement with its neighbors but it will not make the mistakes of the past that led to the deaths of innocents on both sides. Netanyahu offered the Palestinians a chance to earn a demilitarized state. He offered to invest in joint economic projects. He offered to live in peace.
But for this to happen, Netanyahu said there must be a change of heart on the other side. For one, he took the right of return issue off the table. He said what everybody knows this was always a deal breaker and it permitted Arab states and the United Nations to ignore their responsibility for the refugee problem. For 61 years, the Arab States and the United Nations have keep the refugee problem alive by not doing anything about it. Netanyahu said they can not hide behind the refugees anymore. They are responsible for solving a problem they have allowed to foster.
Netanyahu addressed another issue that has been swept under the carpet until now. For any settlement to be reached the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish State. Israel is being pressured to recognize a Palestinian State but the Palestinian have refused to recognize a Jewish State. Less than a month ago, the Palestinian leader Abbas refused to say he accepts Israel as a Jewish State. With Netanyahu at the helm this will not fly.
President Obama has called the speech a good first step. We hope he understands that Netanyahu has many non-negotiable demands in this speech. It's up to Obama to convince the Muslim street he addressed in Cairo to address these legitimate demands. He can start by getting the Palestinians and Saudis to recognize the Jewish State of Israel after 61 years of its existence.
Along with criticism from the Palestinians, Netanyahu's speech has been the subject of criticism from our friend
Daniel Pipes. Daniel makes some important observations that we do not ascribe to but they are worthy of consideration.
Meanwhile,
Professor Gerald Steinberg is more complimentary to the Prime Minister.
United States President Barack Obama's speech was off the mark in many manners. For one, toward the middle of it, he castigates the Israelis for being "occupiers" [his words, "that come from occupation"] who prevent the Palestinians from living with "dignity, opportunity" and that "the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable." What about Sderot? Is this to justify the uncivil and indecent murder of countless scores and even hundreds of Israeli Jews living in Sderot, who have never even done anything so horrid as shake even one stick at any Palestinian or even moreso, any member of the Fascist, totalitarian and anit-Semitic terrorist group named Hamas that now runs all of Jewish Gaza, land that was taken away from Jews who had been living there in thriving communities for many, many years, And what of all of Hamas' firing of Grads, mortars and Quassams, scores, if not hundreds on a daily basis, not only into Sderot, but throughout all of southern Israel, including thriving cities such as Ashdod and Ashkelon where much of Israel's industry is based? We would be fools to give even one inch of the lands of Judea and Samaria to such a group of thugs as these who would only then fire their rockets and missiles into Tel-Aviv, all of its densely-populated surrounding areas and likely so to also bomb Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv as planes come both in and out; and soon enough a tragedy would occur. The Hamas Charter (1988) explicitly states--as is found in its eternity--such notions as: "This is the charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). It reveals its face, its identity, explains its positioin, makes its desires known, speaks of its hopes and calls [upon those who hear] for aid, to support it and join its ranks. That is because our battle against the Jews is great and fateful, and all honest means are necessary for it." So, who is creating war with atrocities such as homicide bombings of innocent Israeli cdivilians and who has saidi that they will never--never, mind you--come to peace with Israel. And give them another firing range in Judea and Samaria? Sheer, utter madness. No, Mr. Obama, you're speech was most one-sided and failed to call Palestinian terrorist groups, which is multitudinous, the names that they are: murders, baby-killers, and out-and-out terrorists. Whoever could make peace with such a group of thugs, and once a call were made to give up Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians, Hamas would once again move in, take over--as it had so easily done in Gaza--and would pounce upon Israel in its merely ten-mile wide range of land, which is all that would be left to it, making Israel extremely vulnerable to any form of attack from any and all terrorist groups, Al-Qaida, and then Iran, too, from right outside the core of Israel. The Hamas Charter once again shows its true face in stating that: "The Islamic Resistance Movement is [also] one link in the chain of holy war in its confrontatioin with the Zionist invasion" and is to be fought by those who have "feared Allah in all these matters and flown the banner of jihad in the faces of tyrants to expel them from the land [ ], and to clean [the tyrants'] pollution from the faithful, [and to remove] their malice and evil, [as it is written in the Qur'an] 'No and again no, we show the truth to senselessness and [the truth] will smash its head and it will quickly fade away...'" Mr. President, you want to praise these Islamic nations. I don't think so. "The tyrants" whose pollution they want to cleanse by "smashing their heads" is you, Sir, the United States of America, Sir! Now, will you still go into their nest and give them more and more so that they can then come and go anywhere they like and kill and kill more innocent lives? No, Mr. President, this I do not want for my United States of America. G-d Bless.