Benjamin Netanyahu says he will discuss “peace” with Obama later this month but spoke only of a “meaningful compromise” with Palestinians, nothing about a Palestinian state. And he set a new condition for peace, that Israel’s neighbors first educate their children to live in peace. “This Middle East,” he said, was too dangerous to be making promises.
Netanyahu spoke by satellite to the annual AIPAC policy conference and emphasized two security threats to the Jewish state that would have top billing in his discussions with Obama later this month: Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions and the dissolution of Syria.
Israel will “always defend the one and only Jewish state,” Netanyahu vowed, against “those who would exterminate us.”
Netanyahu all but ruled out sanctions and diplomacy re Iran:
I have to tell you from the bottom of my heart and with the clarity of my brain: Words alone will not stop Iran. Sanctions alone will not stop Iran. Sanctions must be coupled with a clear and credible military threat if diplomacy and sanctions fail.
And the speech gave short shrift to making peace with the Palestinians. Notice there is no reference to a Palestinian state. And now the peace process is dependent on Israel’s neighbors being peaceful and teaching their children to accept Israel. So as long as there’s an Arab Spring, we can forget about Israel making a deal with the Palestinians.
The third issue I intend to discuss with President Obama is our common quest for peace. Israel seeks a peace with our Palestinian neighbors, a peace that will end our conflict once and for all.Now that peace must be grounded in reality. And it must be grounded in security. Israel withdrew from Lebanon. We withdrew from Gaza. We gave up territory. We got terror. We cannot allow that to happen a third time. Israel is prepared for a meaningful compromise. But as Israel’s Prime Minister, I will never compromise on our security. We must work together to find a realistic path forward — and I think that path has to be a measured step-by-step process in which we work to advance a verifiable, durable and defensible peace.It has to be defensible because in the Middle East, especially in this Middle East, a peace you cannot defend will not hold for five minutes. It has to be verifiable because as we move from one step to another, we have to make sure that we cannot only defend ourselves, but also that our neighbors are actually telling their people, educating their children to live in peace. This is something we desperately want. We yearn for peace, we pray for peace, and with President Obama, we shall work for peace. I look forward to discussing all these issues with President Obama when he comes here later this month.
But in addition, I’ll have a chance to show President Obama a different side of Israel. Israel that has become a technological marvel teeming with innovation. Israel that each day pushes the boundaries of medicine and science to the ends of human imagination. Israel that has one of the world’s most vibrant cultures and one of the world’s most dynamic peoples. Israel, the modern Jewish state living in the ancient Jewish homeland — an oasis of liberty and progress in the heart of the Middle East where these ideas have yet to take root. That is the Israel that all of you know. That is the Israel that all of you love. And that is the Israel that will never stop standing shoulder to shoulder with the country that has been the greatest force for good that the world has ever known – the United States of America.
“That is the Israel that all of you know. That is the Israel that all of you love”.
That is the Israel of fantasy, of manufactured lies. That is not the reality, the one built on the broken bodies and hearts and the shed blood of those who dared to tell of the true Israel they knew from bitter experience, and of the land and people they love.
Don’t go to Israel Mr. Obama– please.
This is an affront to the Palestinian, Jewish and American people who want peace and justice for the indigenous people of Palestine. Do not reward this man who cannot even gather a governing coalition, much less make peace with anyone. This is NOT in our best interests. If you must go, you should go to Jerusalem only– the holy city of all 3 Abrahamic religions, make a speech, and skedaddle.
“I have to tell you from the bottom of my heart and with the clarity of my brain: Words alone will not stop Iran. Sanctions alone will not stop Iran. Sanctions must be coupled with a clear and credible military threat if diplomacy and sanctions fail.”
OTOH, it is possible (and this is the dream of BDS) that although words alone will not stop Israel, sanctions might turn Israel away from its settlement and territorial aggrandizement project even if not (initially) coupled with a clear and credible military threat.
But sanctions — such as trade disruption or cessation — are costly and difficult and the nations do not take such a step easily unless pressed to it by the USA, especially when pressed against doing so by the USA.
What is clear after 65 years is that Israel does not care what any nation says, or what UNSC says. Words alone are of no importance to Israel, which respects force alone.
Vomit, vomit, vomit.
Words won’t stop Israel or Netanyahu either….anyone who wants Israel to survive better get rid of him and the other crazies.
Little doubt that Netanyahu wants Bantustans, not an independent Palestine.