Israel PM says territory not root cause of Mideast conflict

[azurnoir]

Source: Ma'an News Agency

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that an Israeli withdrawal would not bring peace with the Palestinians because the heart of the conflict was their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

His remarks came a day after the Arab League announced moves to revive and modify its 2002 peace initiative, drawing praise from Washington and from Israel's chief peace negotiator Tzipi Livni but no official response from the Israeli government.

"The root of the conflict is not territorial. It started a long time before 1967," Netanyahu said in a meeting with foreign ministry officials, referring to the year Israel seized Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem during the Six-Day War.

............................................

The Saudi-led proposal, which offers full diplomatic ties with the Arab world in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from land occupied in 1967, now includes a reference to the principle of mutually agreed land swaps, in a move hailed by Washington as "a very big step forward."



Read more: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=591247

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The PLO recognized Israel's Right to Exist in 1993 as part of the Oslo Accords

Netanyahu added the as a Jewish State caveat during the 2010 'settlement construction freeze'

[Pab Sungenis]

1. Rabin offered to give them everything except East Jerusalem.

They rejected it.

It's not territory.

[azurnoir]

3. Then what is it ?

BTW you do realize Rabin was assassinated in 1995, can you site the offer?

In 1992 Rabin was elected as chairman of the Labour Party, winning against Shimon Peres. In the elections that year his party, strongly focusing on the popularity of its leader, managed to win a clear victory over the Likud of incumbent Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. However the left-wing bloc in the Knesset only won an overall narrow majority, facilitated by the disqualification of small nationalist parties that did not manage to pass the electoral threshold. Rabin formed the first Labour-led government in fifteen years, supported by a coalition with Meretz, a left wing party, and Shas, a Mizrahi ultra-orthodox religious party.

Rabin played a leading role in the signing of the Oslo Accords, which created the Palestinian National Authority and granted it partial control over parts of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Prior to the signing of the accords, Rabin received a letter from PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat renouncing violence and officially recognising Israel, and on the same day, 9 September 1993, Rabin sent Arafat a letter officially recognising the PLO.[19]

After the announcement of the Oslo Accords there were many protest demonstrations in Israel objecting to the Accords. As these protests dragged on, Rabin insisted that as long as he had a majority in the Knesset he would ignore the protests and the protesters. In this context he said, "they (the protesters) can spin around and around like propellers"[20] but he would continue on the path of the Oslo Accords. Rabin's parliamentary majority rested on non-coalition member Arab support.[21] Rabin also denied the right of American Jews to object to his plan for peace, calling any dissent "chutzpah".[22]

After the historical handshake with Yasser Arafat, Rabin said, on behalf of the Israeli people: "We who have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today, in a loud and a clear voice, enough of blood and tears ... enough!"[23] During this term of office, Rabin also oversaw the signing of the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace in 1994.[24]

This page was last modified on 23 April 2013 at 00:05.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Rabin

[Pab Sungenis]

8. A number of issues.

Hatred (on both sides), a refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state, etc.

If it was land, Palestinians would also be trying to get some of their land back from Jordan since the majority of the British mandate became Jordan.

[azurnoir]

15. Jordan was not created out Palestinian land

The desert kingdom emerged out of the post-World War I division of the Middle East by Britain and France. In 1946, Jordan became an independent sovereign state officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. After capturing the West Bank area of Cisjordan during the 1948–49 war with Israel, Abdullah I took the title King of Jordan and Palestine, and he officially changed the country's name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in April 1949.

This page was last modified on 23 April 2013 at 05:43.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan

now if you'd like to explore who was claiming Jordan as part of what during that period I am willing to do that

[longship]

2. It's because both parties claim divine rights to the land.

God (Allah) gave us this land.

In a way, Bibi is right; in another way he's wrong. The core dispute is religious, not land. But were they both not trying to live in the same damned place, there might be no conflict. So, yes, it is all about the land, plus religions that state that each deserve to be there.

Religion poisons everything.

[LanternWaste]

21. No more and no less than national borders poison everything.

"Religion poisons everything..."

No more and no less than national borders (just as imaginary as religion) poison everything.

[longship]

26. I am quoting Hitchens there.

I sometimes use "Religion poisons everything" as a tag line. It is my opinion that it inevitably poisons politics, government, and science.

It certainly is poisoning relationships in the Middle East. Israel is a Jewish state and their Middle East enemies are all Islamic. That was my point.

Border resolution may indeed be a solution to some big issues there, but the adversaries' behavior and lack of resolution stem from religion, not a border. And both parties are acting horribly.

[on point]

4. Glad to hear it. Please vacate stolen land immediately then!

[PerceptionManagement]

5. I bet if the US stopped giving Israel free money weapons and intel it might motivate them

[JDPriestly]

10. Israel is offering a land settlement. What do the Palestinians want in return?

That is the problem. What do they want?

If it is the right of return, then the claim that the Palestinians recognize Israel's right to exist as a state is false. What are the Palestinians offering in exchange for the land that Israel is willing to give up?

[azurnoir]

14. really as of right now Israel is offering land?

please show us the offer

[bemildred]

6. Well then, giving a lot of land back should be no problem, right? nt

[Alamuti Lotus]

7. doesn't seem to realize that "1967" is a compromise offer, not the root of all issues

The gulf dictators are offering to let the Zionists keep roughly 80% of what they have stolen; no court in the world would offer that kind of sweetheart deal to a burglar, but still the Israeli government yawns. Not that the monarchies of the Saudi Arab League are really in any such position to be offering such a capitulation, nor do those servile puppets intend to do anything about being spat on, but I digress. If Netanyahoo really wants to make this about 1948 as an arbitrary restriction on these increasingly ridiculous "negotiations", let him be the last Israeli Prime Minister then.

[JDPriestly]

11. Posession is 9/10 of the law is an old saying.

It applies here. If the Palestinians want the land, they need to offer peace and full recognition of Israel's right to exist in peace for it.

Someone made the point that if this were really about land, the Palestinians would ask Jordan for some of the land that was given to it during the partition. Most of the land went to Jordan, not to Israel.

Palestine needs to stop talking about the right of return and talk more about the right of Israelis and Palestinians to as neighbors in peace.

[azurnoir]

13. The Palestinians recognized Israel's Right to Exist 20 years ago

the Jewish State suffix was tacked on by Netanyahu much more recently like 3 years ago during the supposed settlement freeze

[JDPriestly]

27. Wrong. The expression, "Jewish state" was in the original UN Resolution.

[azurnoir]

29. the designations Jewish State and Arab State were used by the UN during the partition

to denote the 2 groups that British colonial Palestine was being divided between -nothing more nothing less as neither state had an official name

eta as I said previously Netanyahu tacked that caveat on during the so called settlement freeze

[Alamuti Lotus]

16. Utter rubbish, but did you say the same thing in 1991?

Annexation by conquest is an antiquated idea in this so-called modern civilization, which believes itself to be so advanced; if that wasn't the case, the gulf war wouldn't have occurred. After all, the Iraqis possessed Kuwait and you find that old saying occasionally useful, so what's the big deal?

The Hashemite usurpers are another subject altogether, and you are clumsily dragging them out as a canard. The Hashemites, exiled from the Hejaz (where the British had promised them a state, as if they had any right to be dispensing land in such a manner!) after the Wahhabis overran Makkah and al-Madinah, took the land from the Bedouin and other tribes in the area, not the people presently referred to as Palestinians for convenient reference--the latter lived in the cities west of the river, which is not presently occupied by Jordan. Bringing them up in the present context is just a distraction, which I suspect is the intent.

[John2]

25. If you are saying what

I'm thinking you are, then you are on the right track. I think you have to go back to World War II and not before the Roman Empire. Most of the Jewish occupants of Israel arrived after World War II and the holocaust. There was no state of Israel and it had not existed for Centuries. It was Palestine under the Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire and British. The last major power to control that area was Britain until they relinquished it to the U.N. after World War II. The British denied Jewish settlers into Palestine because the feared what is exactly happening now. The U.S. got involved because it was the U.S. forced the British to allow more Jewish settlers into Palestine. That was when War broke out and the Jewish leader at the time declared the independent state of Israel after gaining territory. That declaration was against the U.N. but with the help of U.S. influence, countries recognized it over the objections of Arabs. Israel has been the U.S. interest ever since or it would never have existed. It is one of the reasons the U.S. has been a target of terrorists. The U.S. has not been a neutral broker period. Our Government has been in on this from the beginning. Even with the issue of weapons and nuclear weapons, the U.S. is bias. How can the U.S. argue Iran may not have one nuclear weapon while Israel may be hording hundreds of them with the courtesy of the U.S. turning the Blind eye. It is too obvious to play ignorance. This is a country with six million Jews, mostly displaced Jews from World War II, that had little or no possessions. Now they are a military power and nuclear state within a short period. How did this happen? I'm looking squarely at the U.S. Congress.

[LanternWaste]

19. Unless one can cite that from current international law, it does not apply...

"Posession (sic) is 9/10 of the law is an old saying..."

Unless one can cite that from current international law, it does not apply... it's merely a simplistic bumper sticker to assuage small minds.

[JDPriestly]

28. It is my understanding that the Palestinian families that now seek the right of return

did not have written or recorded titles to the land they claim. That means their claim to ownership was based on possession, not on a legal record. It is very important to keep legal, written records of land transfers. Unfortunately, it is my understanding, such records do not exist in the area.

I believe that a lot of the land of Israel was actually purchased from individuals who claimed to own it and who owned it.

The desire for a right to return is what is holding back the peace process in the Middle East. It is very sad because both Palestinians and Israelis need to live in peace and get on with their lives.

[oberliner]

30. "...let the Zionists keep roughly 80% of what they have stolen"

"...no court in the world would offer that kind of sweetheart deal to a burglar"

This is some really sick garbage being peddled here.

[Alamuti Lotus]

31. you think I'm being unfair to the buglar?

But you are correct, I greatly misspoke in my earlier posting: nowadays, it's more like 90% with all of the colonies and other "facts on the ground" that the more recently occupied territories are increasingly sullied with.

[Ash_F]

9. He is right.

It's also human rights abuses.

[Fearless]

12. Here's an idea...

They're both wrong. They both have no claim whatsoever to land. They have no claim whatsoever over each other's sovereignty. They both have no right whatsoever to harm, scare, threaten, or otherwise harm another person. Period. Everyone needs to grow up and coexist. Period.

[arikara]

18. Right

Time to end it and get along.

[MisterP]

17. he's right--1948 is definitely before 1967!

[LanternWaste]

20. I think the Sykes-Picot Accord is the root of the region's problems.

I think the Sykes-Picot Accord is the fundamental root of the region's problems, as all the problems seem to be predicated, either directly or indirectly, on that very agreement.

[Ruby the Liberal]

22. Hamas rules right now - the PLO died with Arafat

Until they amend their charter to recognize Israel, it is what it is - the official statement of the democratically elected leadership.

[azurnoir]

23. Hamas rules the West Bank? really if so then why are the POTUS and SoS dealing with Abbas?

with all due respect it's fine to state your opinion, but that simply does not make it a fact

[Marrah_G]

24. No one is so blind as those who will not see.