Netanyahu meeting with Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem yesterday reflected the widespread view among Israel supporters that the unrest in Arab countries means that resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict has no urgency. Note that the UN Secretary General doesn’t buy it.
Netanyahu: I think it’s important to discuss the real problems and not those that are often discussed in the media. You know it wasn’t till so long ago that people said that the root cause of the instability in the Middle East was the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and now you can’t say that with a straight face, because from the Atlantic Ocean to the Khyber Pass you can see this endemic instability that is plaguing so much of the the Arab and Muslim World. We of course would like to see it, not only restore stability but also restore peace and move toward prosperity and equitable relations among nations including with our nation. But I think today today everybody understands that the root cause in the Middle East and beyond has to do with the convulsion that is historic and cultural in nature of which the Israeli Palestinian conflict is merely one of many, many such manifestations.
As far as the Israeli Palestinian peace process, we have to get to the root cause of the problem, and the root cause was and remains the persistent refusal to recognize the Jewish state in any boundary. It doesn’t have to do with settlements. That’s an issue that has to be resolved, but this is not the reason that we have a continual conflict. The conflict preceded the establishment of a single settlement by a half century…
It’s important to understand that if we build a few hundred apartments in Gilo or Ramot or other Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem or in urban blocs that everyone knows… will be part of the final peace map in Israel– I think these are not the real issues that we need to discuss. The real issue is how to get a demilitarized Palestinian state to finally recognize and accept the one and only Jewish state. [thumping the rostrum].
Ban Ki-moon excerpts:
The Prime Minister knows that occupying Palestinian land is not a long term solution….
Some random thoughtlets on “the jewish state”:
– states do not recognize each other based on their religion
– no state in the world has ever recognized another state to be a state of religion X
– the zionist entity can call itself whatever it wants
– the early zionist leaders specifically and explicitly stayed away from this notion
– now say, for the sake of argument, that the whole world does actually recognize the zionist regime as “the jewish state”, then……..
— what happens to its non-jewish residents, would they allow the Galilee to cecede
— what happens when the non-jewish residents become more than 50%
— what happens if the jewish residents change religion
— what happens if other countries in the world call themselves “the christian state” or “the moslem state” or “the buddhist state” or “the hindu state” or “the atheist state”…….
A slippery slope I must say but hey, who cares, call yourself whatever you want but we are not going to do so. Just give us back the land you stole.
Ramzi Jaber. ” states do not recognize each other based on their religion” many states do, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic state of Saudi Arabia come to mind, If the Israeli state officially changed its name at the UN to the ‘Jewish state of Israel’, it would be proper for them to insist on that change to be recognized in any official communication with that state, I would not agree with any such designation since Israel has a large non Jewish minority so it is patently not a Jewish state, also the minority are being discriminated against by state laws now, such a change could only have negative consequences. Let’s see if they have the nerve to change it, I somehow doubt it.
Phil – I misread your headline to mean that the root of the unrest in the Arab world is its refusal to recognize a Jewish state – which is not at all what Netanyahu says.
‘That’s an issue that has to be resolved, but this is not the reason that we have a continual conflict. The conflict preceded the establishment of a single settlement by a half century…”
It has ALWAYS been about 1948. The Israelis still refuse to discuss it. One of Sayyid Qutb’s motivations was Egyptian corruption and weakness in 1948, BTW…
>> As far as the Israeli Palestinian peace process, we have to get to the root cause of the problem, and the root cause was and remains the persistent refusal to recognize the Jewish state in any boundary.
“Jewish State” is a supremacist construct. No-one should be expected or required to “recognize” (in other words, validate) the existence of a supremacist state, especially not:
– the people terrorized and ethnically cleansed from the territory granted to that state;
– the people who remain unable to exercise their lawful right of return to the homes and lands from which they were driven by that state;
– the people subjected to a 60+ years, ON-GOING and offensive (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction, torture and murder by that state; and
– the people who are not granted full and equal rights as citizens within that state.
The only people who think “Jewish State” is a construct worth validating are hateful and immoral Zio-supremacists and their equally hateful and immoral supporters.