CAIRO: Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s first admission of his acceptance of a Palestinian state was marred by preconditions which render this supposed breakthrough a moot point.
In an effort to respond to recent American public relations overtures regarding the creation of a Palestinian state, specified by US President Barack Obama during his June 4 speech in Cairo, Netanyahu publicly declared for the first time his willingness to recognize a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian state Netanyahu would like to see is a demilitarized one with no control over its airspace that would recognize Israel as a Jewish state – thus giving up on the Palestinian refugees’ right of return – and with Jerusalem as its undivided capital, a promise Obama had made before his election.
Speaking at Bar-Illan University Sunday night, Netanyahu said, “A fundamental prerequisite for ending the conflict is a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.
“To vest this declaration with practical meaning, there must also be a clear understanding that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside Israel’s borders. For it is clear that any demand for resettling Palestinian refugees within Israel undermines Israel’s continued existence as the state of the Jewish people, he added, also saying that “Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel.
Qassem Ali, CEO of the Palestinian Ramattan News Agency, told Daily News Egypt, “The speech exemplified the arrogance of Netanyahu and his thinking that there are no Palestinians with any dignity. Does he think he is God and he is going to give us a state with such humiliation, after they took everything? It is really insulting to Palestinians and to humanity.
“His comments were racist, and they were accepted by the international community. A Jewish state means a racist state, the Arab citizens are not recognized by the title of the state, it is like deciding to say Christian Palestine or Muslim Palestine.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s speech was billed as a seminal talk that would not only build on the direction Obama is attempting to take but also outline Israeli policy regarding the peace process.
Netanyahu said, “In order to achieve peace, we must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hezbollah and Iran.
Abdel-Aleem Mohamed, head of Israeli studies at Al-Ahram center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Daily News Egypt, “It is nowhere near enough. The whole point of his speech was to appease Obama, so he just mentioned the creation of a Palestinian state. But the conditions he put forward make it devoid of any substance and impossible to create such a state.
Netanyahu said that these conditions were intractable if Israel was to accept a Palestinian state.
“If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel’s security needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the State of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state, he said.
Ali said, “I think negotiations are now useless and are only to cover the brutality of the occupation. It’s been almost two decades and we should concentrate on building our society rather than politics, because politics will not help us now. If we agree to negotiate on these terms then we are agreeing to racism. Resistance means staying in our land, we are not going anywhere and it will take as long as it takes.
Mohamed said, “This is a test of the current US President, because he knows that he cannot leave the Palestinians at the mercy of the Israelis in the negotiations who are the stronger party. So he must apply pressure to Israel to make any negotiations successful, Mohamed said.
