Batoul Wehbe Readers Number : 127
11/06/2009 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will announce in his foreign policy speech scheduled for Sunday the adoption of the road map and the "two-state solution" for settling the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Haaretz quoted sources close to the prime minister. The sources said the speech will "revolve around the road map."
Netanyahu will present a few conditions for the implementation of the road map, above all a Palestinian recognition of “Israel” as the homeland of the Jewish people. He will also demand that the future Palestinian state be demilitarized.
Netanyahu will propose the immediate renewal of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on the basis of a formula that will allow for self-government “as long as the Palestinians do not endanger Israel”.
Netanyahu met with several prominent Likud MKs on Wednesday evening, ahead of his planned address at Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, this coming Sunday. They were trying to convince him not to mention the words "two states" in his speech, according to Israeli media.
Netanyahu will propose a regional process in which Arab states will initiate the normalization of ties with Israel, in parallel to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The final draft of the speech will only be completed over the weekend.
In his speech Sunday, at a bastion of Israel's national-religious movement, Netanyahu will declare that the settlements in occupied West Bank are not an obstacle to “peace.”
Sources close to the prime minister said Netanyahu will not announce during his speech a freeze on construction in the settlements, as the United States has insisted Israel must do.
Channel 2 news reported Wednesday that Netanyahu has evaluated a number of ways of freezing settlement construction, including issuing a temporary (several months) hold on new construction starts in return for reciprocal measures on the part of the Palestinians and Arab states. Another option is declaring a freeze on construction in occupied Jerusalem, or in the settlement blocs, but these are not expected to be mentioned in the speech.
The differences in the positions of Israel and the U.S. on building in the settlements narrowed in the wake of talks between U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell and Netanyahu Tuesday.
An Israeli source said the talks, which lasted about four hours, "resulted in a great deal of progress," as a result of the more flexible proposals put forth by Netanyahu on the settlements. A senior Washington source confirmed that progress had been achieved, but stressed that "our position on the need to cease settlement construction has not been altered at all. The talks were good and we will continue in a few days."
ISRAEL PRESSING BIBI NO TO MENTION A “PALESTINIAN STATE”
The heat is on Netanyahu from within his own right-wing Likud party to resist US pressure and not utter the words "Palestinian state" in his keenly-awaited speech. "The expression Palestinian state should not be used," said Likud MP Miri Regev, echoing the sentiment of several other members of the party.
Regev insisted Obama cannot force decisions upon the Israeli government. "The US pressure is mainly psychological; one should not forget that the president is not the only one in the United States, there's the Congress and the Senate, which support Israel," she said.
Also among those pressing Netanyahu to steer clear of the concept of a Palestinian state is Benny Begin, a minister without portfolio and son of former premier Menahem Begin. "If the only solution is two states for two peoples, then there is no solution," he said. Begin insisted that the Palestinians were not after a two-state solution but wanted a "two-stage solution at the end of which there would be a single PLO-Hamas state."
MUBARAK: NETANYAHU WILL ACCEPT 2-STATES
Earlier in the day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that Netanyahu would accept the two-state solution. "Israel will agree to the two-state solution," Mubarak said in an interview with Egyptian media after a telephone conversation with the Israeli prime minister.
"I spoke with Netanyahu and told him there was no other option. Ultimately the solution will be one of two states – the State of Israel alongside an Arab state." Mubarak said that Netanyahu did not counter his assertion.
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VIDEO: Gambling with Conflict: How settlers control Israeli policy
Max Blumenthal presents a disturbing inside look at the largest annual gathering of radical Jewish settlers. A Mondoweiss exclusive with David Jacobus and Jesse Rosenfeld. Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective.
Israeli settlers disrupt Palestinian harvest
BBC – Settlers in the West Bank
Our aggressive democracy
…Racist legislation is a disease, wherever it comes from. But in this case, the identity of the party that initiates the bills is important. The mass immigration from the former Soviet Union put two of the largest communities in Israel on a collision course – the Arabs and the new immigrants. The ethos of the Law of Return collides with the ethos of the right of return, and the absorption of a million new immigrants in employment and housing has been carried out largely at the Arabs’ expense. The shift in demographic balance created by this aliyah sidelined the Arab community even further. Instead of using this change to expand democracy, Israel, through Yisrael Beiteinu, is using it to create an aggressive democracy.
Ref: haaretz
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