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Author Topic: Does Israel recognize Palestine's right to exist?
rasmus
malcontent
Babbler # 621

posted 11 June 2006 11:04 AM      Profile for rasmus   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
His view shocked members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations when Mr Halevy addressed them recently in New York. He has held it for some time. In September 2003, he said Israel should signal to Hamas that if it "enter[s] the fabric of the Palestinian establishment, we will not view that as a negative development. I think that in the end there will be no way around Hamas being a partner in the Palestinian government". At that time, when Hamas had the support of only a fifth of the Palestinian population, Mr Halevy said: "Anyone who thinks it is possible to ignore such a central element of Palestinian society is simply mistaken." How much more so today, when Hamas enjoys majority support.

Asked last week on Israeli television how he could justify advocating engagement with a terrorist organisation that does not recognise Israel's right to exist, Mr Halevy ridiculed the stale assumptions that underlie that question. Do not look at Hamas's rhetoric, he said, look at what it does: Hamas declared a truce 18 months ago and has committed no terrorist acts against Israel since. In spite of Hamas's refusal to change its theological rejection of Israel, Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister in the Hamas-led government, ordered his ministers to seek practical co-operation with their Israeli counterparts. Mr Haniyeh also confirmed that Hamas's self-declared truce is open-ended.

Why should Israel care whether Hamas grants it the right to exist, Mr Halevy asked. Israel exists and Hamas's recognition or non-recognition neither adds to nor detracts from that irrefutable fact. But 40 years after the 1967 war, a Palestinian state does not exist. The politically consequential question, therefore, is whether Israel recognises a Palestinian right to statehood, not the reverse.


The issue is not whether Hamas recognizes Israel -- Henry Siegman in the Financial Times

An earlier column by Henry Siegman is also quite interesting:

quote:
One of the most dramatic changes to have occurred since the Gaza withdrawal – largely ignored by the media – has been a major shift in Palestinian public attitudes. According to the most recent survey by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah, most Palestinians now feel that improving their daily lives is their first priority. Until now, ending the occupation was their top goal. That has slipped to second place by a margin of 15 per cent. The poll also found the majority of Palestinians supported a permanent ceasefire, even though they remained convinced that the Gaza pull-out was due to violent "resistance". And for the first time, a majority favours the collection of arms from militants in Gaza.

[...]


Khalil Shikaki, head of the PSR, recently said that Israeli reactions to what are still only sporadic Palestinian ceasefire violations had "mistaken the trees for the forest". Militants hope that the renewed violence, and the Israeli reprisals it provokes, will head off Palestinian demands for a crackdown on the militias. The new Palestinian optimism that progress can now be achieved by non-violent means is what constitutes the "forest". Mr Shikaki warns that by seeing only the "trees" – that is, occasional ceasefire violations – Israeli responses that collectively punish the Palestinian public will help Hamas and other extremist groups regain popular support.

Far from encouraging the new Palestinian optimism, Mr Sharon has refused to resume political negotiations; increased – rather than halted, as required by the "road map" for peace – expansion of West Bank settlements; tightened rather than eased restrictions on the movement of people and goods; and closed the crossing points in Gaza, threatening to turn it into a vast prison. Mr Sharon's promise earlier this week to ease these Gaza restrictions came about only as a result of intense US pressure. It is still far from implementation.

Mr Sharon has also kept up disparaging criticism of Mr Abbas for his failure to prevent ceasefire violations, dismissing him as "a partner for peace". In fact, Mr Abbas's capacities cannot be judged without reference to the Israeli bureaucracy of occupation.

As Amira Hass noted in Ha'aretz, the Israeli daily, an IDF soldier at a remote checkpoint has more to say about critical issues affecting Palestinians than does Mr Abbas. "[He] has neither the authority nor the power to ensure that students from Gaza or East Jerusalem can get to their classes in Nablus or Tulkarm . . . nor prevent the expropriation of [Palestinian] land for "Jews-only roads" in the West Bank. But [Mr Sharon] holds him responsible for the behaviour of the various militants, who in turn disparage him because he cannot ensure that a nursing mother will be able to get to the doctor."


Time to take Palestinian opinion seriously


From: Fortune favours the bold | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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