President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the flight to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday | Photo credit: Kobi Gideon / GPO
Likud ministers and right-wing MKs on Wednesday blasted President Shimon Peres for his statements that the demand for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is “unnecessary.” Peres made these statements in closed-door talks, the contents of which were reported by Israel Hayom on Wednesday.
A political source on Wednesday said that, even though Peres did not make these statements publicly, many individuals had heard them. “This is an act that should not be done,” the source said.
“The demand for a Jewish state is meant to ensure that this will be an end to the conflict and that the Palestinians will not make any more demands after the agreement,” said Homefront Defense Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud), responding to Peres.
“It is unfortunate that Peres has yet again expressed policy that makes progress in the negotiations harder to achieve. We have a prime minister who was elected by the people and I do not understand why the president is interfering in diplomatic matters all the time.”
Strategic Affairs, Intelligence and International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) said, “Every negotiation for peace starts with mutual recognition. [The Palestinians] still haven’t recognized the existence of the Jewish people and its right to a state of its own. That’s the heart of the conflict. As long as the Palestinians do not recognize us as a Jewish state, there will not be peace, it will be a joke.”
Deputy Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) said the president was “sticking his head in the sand.”
“Dividing Israel is more important to Peres than peace,” said Hotovely. “His disregard for the consistent refusal of the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is sticking his head in the sand, ignoring the true face of the enemy.”
Labor MK Amar Bar-Lev, meanwhile, supported Peres, who was a long-time Labor MK.
“The prime minister’s insistence on the recognition of the Jewish state is wearing away at the branch he, and we, are sitting on,” said Bar-Lev.
In an interview on Army Radio on Wednesday, Peres advisor Nadav Tamir tried to elucidate the president’s views.
“The president was talking about the fact that there’s a sense of urgency, that we have a partner, a determined American mediator, and we must seize the opportunity and take advantage of it,” said Tamir, who hinted that Peres himself felt that the publication of his statements was an unforeseen mishap.
“The president does not speak publicly about his opinions on the negotiations,” Tamir said.
What Peres fails to understand
By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM
The Palestinians have invented a new nation — the “Israeli nation.” They are prepared to recognize the right of the “Israeli nation” to exist in peace and security as a state, as long as it is not a Jewish state. That is the Palestinian version of “a state for all its citizens,” in which the Jewish and national identity of the State of Israel is completely obscured. Even when the Palestinians grit their teeth and talk about “two states for two peoples,” they are not talking about states for a Palestinian nation and a Jewish nation, but for a Palestinian nation and an Israeli nation.
This game, which has a clear goal, is again confusing President Shimon Peres, who is chronically mistaken in his analysis of the true intentions of the Palestinians. See: the Oslo Accords, the New Middle East, comrade Yasser Arafat.
This delusion allows the Palestinians to continue declaring that they will establish a state on the pieces of land in the Palestinian territories that “will be released,” without giving up on the continued hope and effort to establish a Palestinian state on the remaining pieces of land, on all the territory in Israel, instead of Israel.
This used to be called the “Phased Plan.” The path to achieving it includes the actualization of the “right” of return. The Palestinians have not given up on that either. So they continue to talk, to give speeches, preaching and promising that the day will come when they will return to the “settlements” — Jaffa, Lod, Haifa and Acre.
The Palestinians are not keeping their right to self-determination within the 1947 lines or the 1967 borders, but they are actively striving toward realizing that right on all the lands of the State of Israel, or as they call it, Palestine. That is why they cannot recognize a Jewish state.
It is not very complicated, so it is unclear how this is not being understood: If the State of Israel, even with reduced and dangerous borders, is not the state of the Jewish people, the conflict will not end and there is no “end to the conflict,” rather there is a “continued conflict.” Any sane country will not give away assets including the territories of its homeland, its heritage, security areas and parts of its capital for the sake of a “continued conflict.”
From the Palestinian perspective, the presence of the Jewish people in Israel is temporary, passing, as passersby do. If we do not demand from them to recognize our permanent presence here, to recognize our connection to this land as the Jewish nation, a demand that implies the limiting of their right to self-determination to certain defined lines, we will fall into the same traps that Peres fell into in the past.
We are wasting time still with the worst internal arch enemy of us all. Peres is a willing criminal that illegally entered Oslo and flagrantly conspired to import, arm and provide for Arafat with the express intent of murdering, stealing, destroying our people and Heritage. Rabin himself identified Peres as a conniver, underhanded plotter, saboteur.
Has the deviant ever apologized for the tens of thousands of “victims of peace” he and his mutants facilitated?
To hell wit that old pile of yentz!
“As long as Israel’s leaders are guided by security concerns alone – existence instead of destiny – we will continue to find ourselves losing ground in an unwinnable rear-guard war.” – Moshe Feiglin, Ya’alon’s Rear-Guard War
Which is why there will never be peace.
And Shimon Peres’ discredited vision of a New Middle East remains just that – a fantasy!
The Palestinian “Foreign Minister” Riyad al-Maliki explains why he will never recognize the Jewish State. And he is right! The minute he does it, the whole Palestinian narrative is discredited, and that is precisely what Israel should pursue, notwithstanding the lame arguments of President Peres:
So our partner is the “determined American mediator”. We’re making peace with the U.S.A. Very nice but what about the Pali problem? How does a deal concluded with the U.S.A. solve the Palyi problem?
So what if our Palis declared that they finally recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. What would that be worth? Have they honored any agreement they’ve signed with Israel? Is there any integrity in Muslims signing agreements with Kafars – infidels? Is not lying to infidels a religious principle of Islam? We’d still end up with a worthless piece of paper in exchange for irrevocable abandonment of existential assets.
So our partner is the “determined American mediator”. We’re making peace with the U.S.A. Very nice but what about the Pali problem? How does a deal concluded with the U.S.A. solve the Palyi problem?
So what if our Palis declared that they finally recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. What would that be worth? Have they honored any agreement they’ve signed with Israel? Is there any integrity in Muslims signing agreements with Kafars – infidels? Is not lying to infidels a religous princple of Islam. We’d still end up with a worthless piece of paper in exchange for irrevocable abandonment of existential assets.