Netanyahu: Israel willing to 'cede parts of our homeland' for true peace

Prime Minister tells Knesset that a Palestinian government that refuses to recognize Israel is no partner for peace; he also says Israel must stop blaming itself for the cycle of violence and start looking at the 'reality' of the situation with 'open eyes'.


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel would be prepared to compromise and "cede parts of our homeland" for true peace with the Palestinians, but added that he did not believe the latter was ready to be a true partner for peace.

A Palestinian government that comprises representatives of Hamas, a movement that refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, is not a government with which it would be possible to make peace, said Netanyahu.

snip* Netanyahu said he believed that most Israeli people would stand behind a foreign policy based on the following conditions:

The demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people; a commitment to end the conflict; a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue that did not require absorption within Israel's borders; the establishment of a Palestinian state only in accordance with a peace deal that did not infringe on Israel's security; that said Palestinian state be demilitarized; the preservation of large settlement blocs within the West Bank; and the insistence that Jerusalem remain the undivided capital of Israel.

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-israel-willing-to-cede-parts-of-our-homeland-for-true-peace-1.362130

** Boy is he serious about peace.

Abbas' spokesman: Peace deal means East Jerusalem will be capital of Palestine; Palestinian negotiator: Peace is not a favor, but a mutual interest.


The Palestinian Authority on Monday rejected statements Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made at a parliament session, which he described as pre-conditions for peace.

Netanyahu said that the Palestinians have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, solve the refugee problem outside Israel and accept a permanent Israeli army presence in a demilitarized Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank that does not include Jerusalem.

He also said that that Israel would be prepared to compromise and "cede parts of our homeland" for true peace with the Palestinians, but added that he did not believe the latter was ready to be a true partner for peace.

Netanyahu's statements "are unacceptable pre-conditions," said presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeineh.

"Any peace deal means that East Jerusalem will be the capital of the state of Palestine and all permanent status issues should be resolved at the negotiations table according to international resolutions and the road map," he said.

Abu Rudeineh criticized Netanyahu's statements saying, "they once again show that Israel is not interested in peace and defies the will of the international community, but that will not stop the Palestinian people from asking for their full rights, including going to the United Nations."

The Palestinians plan to ask the UN Security Council and General Assembly in September to recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinian-official-peace-possible-in-days-but-israel-isn-t-interested-1.362162

1) current Israel government refusal to remove settlements
2) Palestinians demanding RoR to Israel proper.
3) Determination of the old city of Jerusalem. I think that Israel would accept Palestine having a government seat in the newer sections of eastern Jerusalem, but not political control over the old city
4) Lieberman's party in the government coalition

Same blaming the Palestinians. Same demand for Palestinian disarmament.

It is Israel that is not ready for peace. It is Israel that is the aggressor. It is Israel that has all the armaments.

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to jews becoming a minority in the state, most likely an oppressed minority, given the power of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their extreme Islamic views.

But yes, they would become an oppressed minority, seeing that they've been dealing in oppression for sixty years. Either that, or it would go back to the systematic terrorism that began the Israeli state in the first place.

Although a quick reading of the Balfour declaration would make it obvious to most that a one-state solution was what he had in mind at the time! The Palestinians have borne the burden for the crimes of Europe and North America against the Jews, and the Israeli state has been the weapon that has made them a dispossessed and oppressed minority.

What can't continue, won't.

What would make you think the rightwing leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PLO would want to be represented and held accountable under a liberal democratic and representative system of government with checks and balances, freedom of speech, ensuring equal rights for women and gays, etc..?

That's the last thing they want and it's why they kill leftwingers and don't think twice about it.

That was a decision made with mutual input; the Israelis didn't want a one-state solution either,as I remember. In fact, wasn't that part of what the King David hotel thing was about?

The terrorism, even at that point, wasn't fairly balanced. The Israelis had more money, better technical know-how and better training. Yes,I understand why, but that doesn't excuse what they have done in the name of a homeland.

The one state solution would require big concessions from the Israelis, and those are not going to happen. Things like sharing the water table (that would mean removing the barrier wall), removing a network of Jews-only roads, a lot of them separating farmers from their fields, it would mean treating sewage from the settlements...it would mean a great many things that the Israelis have said are off the table.

You can't blame the Palestinians for their existence, you know.

That's quite an ugly image of Israel you have there.

eta or so we're told but I 'wonder' if visitors from the US and other places are not allowed on those roads too, the fact is that the Palestinians in area are not allowed to use them

The military and the settlers use those roads, and the settlers are very carefully Jewish.

The Occupied Territories: Violation of Freedom of Movement

Palestinians are greatly impeded in their own country on their own land, and "in their own homes" in spite of being "protected persons" under international law for whom the occupying power must safeguard their rights. In fact, they're routinely and willfully denied as follows:

-- by physical obstacles: checkpoints, blockades (concrete blocks, trenches, fences, earth mounds), and the Separation Wall; Palestinians are enclosed in segregated cantons; separated from their land and isolated from other communities;

-- movement is severely restricted; special roads are for Jews only; they're forbidden from entering settlements, their surrounding land, or closed military zones; most may not leave the OPT or travel abroad even to study and for Gazans to get critically needed medical care;

- Israel's High Court condones discrimination in violation of international law;

-- in the so-called "seam zone" between the Green Line and Separation Wall, a "permits regime" exists that makes some Palestinians illegal residents in their own homes; they need an army permit to be there and to work their own land; when granted they're for short periods and must continually be renewed;

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12546

This is reality; this is a very brutal and repressive occupation of an entire land. The state of Israel was carved out of the land of Palestine, sending people to live in refugee camps and killing too many. That wasn't enough; it is not Palestinians who are bent on pushing Israel into the sea. That would never have happened. Israel is too well-armed and funded; they have been so from the beginning. It is Israel that wants to push the Palestinians into the sea. Remember that the history is written by the victors.

Israel does not want peace. That is why they claim that the Palestinians are dangerous, that they can't be counted on to want peace. I haven't seen evidence of that; what I have seen is evidence that Israel, having had the upper hand for a very long time, intends to keep it. There was, not too long ago, a movement to give palestinians small, hand-held cameras to document the abuses of the settlers. That initiative found settlers lynching an old couple and their son, farmers trying to make a living. They have been known to gather Palestinian crops, too...this is not the nice dividing line between bad Palestinians and good Jews that is the narrative in the US.

I have no problem with Israel existing behind the 1948 borders; I do believe, however, that the occupation of the incredible shrinking Palestine and the wall enclosing the Palestinian water table is aggression of a kind that should not be condoned. A one-state solution, with Palestinians able to return to their farms and their homes, is a solution that would force Israel to live with their neighbours, something they clearly don't want to do.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32702595/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2009/12/28/Jerusalem-approves-Arab-housing-units/UPI-81171262005573/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZyEmn4wjnY

Also, all Israeli citizens and members of the IDF can travel on those roads, including the 25% of Israelis who are not Jews.

its a semantics game here where, only 'mathematical' truth applies or to be true it must be 100% of the time even one instance of differentiation from that makes it 100% false or 999 of 1000 people using those roads may be Jews but if so much as 1 non-Jew is allowed then they are not Jews only roads, however they are no non Israeli Palestinian roads

But Netanyahu does.

What a mess.