Netanyahu: Palestinians are living in the Jewish homeland & must recognize Jewish right to be there
Marian Houk
June 15, 2009
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, might have been surprised to have heard Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say on Sunday night, in a speech that had a big advance build-up, that he views them essentially as intruders: "In the very heart of our Jewish homeland today there is a large population of Palestinians".
"Our links with the land of Israel, and the presence of Palestinian people living within it, have led to many problems", Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu's speech, at Bar-Ilan University not far from Tel Aviv, was planned and designed as the answer to U.S. President Barak Obama's speech to the Muslim world from Cairo University on 4 June.
What the Palestinians have to do, for peace, is "to accept that the Jewish people have a right to live in its historical homeland", Netanyahu said. "If Palestinian leaders say these simple words to our people, then the path/road will open up".
"The simple truth is that the root of the conflict has been -- and remains - the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish People to its own state in its historical homeland".
Palestinians must recognize "the State of Israel as the State of the Jewish people", Netanyahu said.
Palestinians could live as a "free" people, side-by-side with the Jewish people, with each having its own "national existence", Netanyahu said, if (1) they recognize Israel as the national state of the Jewish people, and if (2) they agree that "the Palestinian entity must be demilitarized", with Israel having a real defensive edge.
But what does Netanyahu mean when he suggests that the Palestinians, in his vision, would then be "free".
"The Palestinians cannot have rockets and missiles coming into Israel", Netanyahu said, and Israel must have security control so that an armed Palestinian state "will not become a terrorist base against Israel, as happened in Gaza". He said "We do not want missiles and rockets fired upon … [Israel´s] Ben Gurion International Airport".
The "areas under Palestinian control" can have no army, and no control of the air space, and cannot bring in arms -- and there must be real supervision to ensure this, Netanyahu said. In addition, the Palestinians cannot conclude military alliances with others (like Iran or Hizballah).
Netanyahu said that "It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarized".
"Israel must control its security and its destiny", he added, and there must be "ironclad security provisions for Israel".
But, apparently the Palestinians are not entitled to the same.
"If we receive a guarantee about this demilitarized ´unit´, then we will be prepared to reach agreement to a demilitarized Palestine living side by side with the Jewish state", Netanyahu said.
The Israeli Prime Minister indicated that "Israel needs defensible borders, and Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel with continued religious freedom for all faiths.
The territorial question will be discussed as part of the final peace agreement. In the meantime, we have no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements".
"Reconciliation must start today", Netanyahu said.
"The problem of Palestinian refugees must be solved outside of the boundaries of the State of Israel", Netanyahu said -- though this is not exactly reconciliation. Netanyahu added that "We ourselves have proven it is possible in similar conditions", and said that "with international investment, we can solve this problem".
Netanyahu argued that "the right of the Jewish people to live on the land of the Jewish people does not derive out of a series of catastrophes ... Some say that if the Holocaust had not happened, there would not be a State of Israel. I say that if Israel were created earlier, then the Holocaust would not have happened".
What needs to be recognized, Netanyahu said, is that "the land of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people".
Some commentators say that in this speech there was a historic first acceptance, by Netanyahu, of some kind of a Palestinian "state".
But, in fact, Netanyahu (speaking in Hebrew, heard through an English translation) hardly pronounced the words "Palestinian" and "state" together.
Later, transcripts showed that Netanyahu apparently actually said "Palestinian state" three times:
(1) ... "there is a real fear that there will be an armed Palestinian state which will become a terrorist base against Israel, as happened in Gaza" ...
(2) ... "We cannot be expected to agree to a Palestinian state without ensuring that it is demilitarized".
(3) " I told President Obama in Washington, if we get a guarantee of demilitarization, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state, we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state".
The Palestinian independent politician and political analyst Mustafa Barghouti commented afterward that, in his view, Netanyahu "did not speak about a state, he spoke about a ghetto, a Bantustan."
Barghouti, a medical doctor who founded and now runs the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, is also an elected member of the Palestine Legislative Council that is suspended from work because it cannot actually meet because it cannot call a quorum of members – so many of the Hamas-affiliated members have been arrested and imprisoned by Israel.
Barghouti also said, in a teleconference call arranged by Media Central, an organization that tries to help journalists cover developments in Israel, that Netanyahu "was very blunt and clear – he sees the whole of Palestine as the Land of Israel, in violation of international law".
Barghouti asked "Why is he claiming that the West Bank is part of the State of Israel?"
UN Security Council resolutions regard the territory seized by Israel in the June 1967 war as currently being under occupation.
Barghouti said that Israel is not the state of the Jewish people alone – 20 percent of the population of Israel are Palestinian Arabs – and it should be the state of all its citizens.
Barghouti said that he did not see anything new in Netanyahu´s speech, but "on the contrary, I see something more malignant".
And, he said, "We will never accept to live as slaves under apartheid".
The Jerusalem Post´s political analyst Gil Hoffman said, after Barghouti spoke, that "he didn´t hear the same speech I did. Netanyahu went much further to the left than I thought. The advance expectations were that all he´d say would be that he´d support the Road Map" (with all the reservations Israel already registered).
Hoffman called the speech a very big change in Israeli policy: "Now you´ve got an Israeli government working toward concessions – while until now there´s not been a plan".
Hoffman then piled on to challenge one of the arguments President Obama made in his Cairo speech. Hoffman, running through a quick calculation orally, came up with the figure of the Jewish attachment to Palestine as dating back "3584 years, exactly" -- concluding, a echoing Netanyahu's words, that "we're not here because of the Holocaust".
Yet, asked what he thought was going on last year, during the U.S.-sponsored Annapolis negotiations (November 2007 to January 2009), Hoffman asserted that the Annapolis process was "totally irrelevant" -- and "history".
Contradicting Hoffman are two recent UN Security Council resolutions: one is UNSC Resolution 1850 of 16 December, in which the Security Council declared "its support for the negotiations initiated at Annapolis, Maryland on 27 November 2007 and its commitment to the irreversibility of the bilateral negotiations".
Then, UNSC Resolution 1860, adopted on 8 January during the IDF´s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, called for "renewed and urgent efforts by the parties and the international community to achieve a comprehensive peace based on the vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace with secure and recognized borders".
Palestinian negotiator Sa´eb Erakat issued a statement later complaining that Netanyahu "left us with nothing to negotiate as he systematically took nearly every permanent status issue off the table. Nor did he accept a Palestinian state; instead, he announced a series of conditions and qualifications that render a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state impossible … He blamed Palestinians for their own occupation, and then imposed a set of preconditions for negotiations that demand Palestinians give up their inalienable rights and surrender their national aspirations for a sovereign and independent Palestinian state."
No, Netanyahu did not give unqualified support for two democratic States -- the Palestinians called it first, bitterly joking that Netanyahu only seems to want a state-and-a-half.
"Our links with the land of Israel, and the presence of Palestinian people living within it, have led to many problems", Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu's speech, at Bar-Ilan University not far from Tel Aviv, was planned and designed as the answer to U.S. President Barak Obama's speech to the Muslim world from Cairo University on 4 June.
What the Palestinians have to do, for peace, is "to accept that the Jewish people have a right to live in its historical homeland", Netanyahu said. "If Palestinian leaders say these simple words to our people, then the path/road will open up".
"The simple truth is that the root of the conflict has been -- and remains - the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish People to its own state in its historical homeland".
Palestinians must recognize "the State of Israel as the State of the Jewish people", Netanyahu said.
Palestinians could live as a "free" people, side-by-side with the Jewish people, with each having its own "national existence", Netanyahu said, if (1) they recognize Israel as the national state of the Jewish people, and if (2) they agree that "the Palestinian entity must be demilitarized", with Israel having a real defensive edge.
But what does Netanyahu mean when he suggests that the Palestinians, in his vision, would then be "free".
"The Palestinians cannot have rockets and missiles coming into Israel", Netanyahu said, and Israel must have security control so that an armed Palestinian state "will not become a terrorist base against Israel, as happened in Gaza". He said "We do not want missiles and rockets fired upon … [Israel´s] Ben Gurion International Airport".
The "areas under Palestinian control" can have no army, and no control of the air space, and cannot bring in arms -- and there must be real supervision to ensure this, Netanyahu said. In addition, the Palestinians cannot conclude military alliances with others (like Iran or Hizballah).
Netanyahu said that "It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarized".
"Israel must control its security and its destiny", he added, and there must be "ironclad security provisions for Israel".
But, apparently the Palestinians are not entitled to the same.
"If we receive a guarantee about this demilitarized ´unit´, then we will be prepared to reach agreement to a demilitarized Palestine living side by side with the Jewish state", Netanyahu said.
The Israeli Prime Minister indicated that "Israel needs defensible borders, and Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel with continued religious freedom for all faiths.
The territorial question will be discussed as part of the final peace agreement. In the meantime, we have no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements".
"Reconciliation must start today", Netanyahu said.
"The problem of Palestinian refugees must be solved outside of the boundaries of the State of Israel", Netanyahu said -- though this is not exactly reconciliation. Netanyahu added that "We ourselves have proven it is possible in similar conditions", and said that "with international investment, we can solve this problem".
Netanyahu argued that "the right of the Jewish people to live on the land of the Jewish people does not derive out of a series of catastrophes ... Some say that if the Holocaust had not happened, there would not be a State of Israel. I say that if Israel were created earlier, then the Holocaust would not have happened".
What needs to be recognized, Netanyahu said, is that "the land of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people".
Some commentators say that in this speech there was a historic first acceptance, by Netanyahu, of some kind of a Palestinian "state".
But, in fact, Netanyahu (speaking in Hebrew, heard through an English translation) hardly pronounced the words "Palestinian" and "state" together.
Later, transcripts showed that Netanyahu apparently actually said "Palestinian state" three times:
(1) ... "there is a real fear that there will be an armed Palestinian state which will become a terrorist base against Israel, as happened in Gaza" ...
(2) ... "We cannot be expected to agree to a Palestinian state without ensuring that it is demilitarized".
(3) " I told President Obama in Washington, if we get a guarantee of demilitarization, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state, we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state".
The Palestinian independent politician and political analyst Mustafa Barghouti commented afterward that, in his view, Netanyahu "did not speak about a state, he spoke about a ghetto, a Bantustan."
Barghouti, a medical doctor who founded and now runs the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, is also an elected member of the Palestine Legislative Council that is suspended from work because it cannot actually meet because it cannot call a quorum of members – so many of the Hamas-affiliated members have been arrested and imprisoned by Israel.
Barghouti also said, in a teleconference call arranged by Media Central, an organization that tries to help journalists cover developments in Israel, that Netanyahu "was very blunt and clear – he sees the whole of Palestine as the Land of Israel, in violation of international law".
Barghouti asked "Why is he claiming that the West Bank is part of the State of Israel?"
UN Security Council resolutions regard the territory seized by Israel in the June 1967 war as currently being under occupation.
Barghouti said that Israel is not the state of the Jewish people alone – 20 percent of the population of Israel are Palestinian Arabs – and it should be the state of all its citizens.
Barghouti said that he did not see anything new in Netanyahu´s speech, but "on the contrary, I see something more malignant".
And, he said, "We will never accept to live as slaves under apartheid".
The Jerusalem Post´s political analyst Gil Hoffman said, after Barghouti spoke, that "he didn´t hear the same speech I did. Netanyahu went much further to the left than I thought. The advance expectations were that all he´d say would be that he´d support the Road Map" (with all the reservations Israel already registered).
Hoffman called the speech a very big change in Israeli policy: "Now you´ve got an Israeli government working toward concessions – while until now there´s not been a plan".
Hoffman then piled on to challenge one of the arguments President Obama made in his Cairo speech. Hoffman, running through a quick calculation orally, came up with the figure of the Jewish attachment to Palestine as dating back "3584 years, exactly" -- concluding, a echoing Netanyahu's words, that "we're not here because of the Holocaust".
Yet, asked what he thought was going on last year, during the U.S.-sponsored Annapolis negotiations (November 2007 to January 2009), Hoffman asserted that the Annapolis process was "totally irrelevant" -- and "history".
Contradicting Hoffman are two recent UN Security Council resolutions: one is UNSC Resolution 1850 of 16 December, in which the Security Council declared "its support for the negotiations initiated at Annapolis, Maryland on 27 November 2007 and its commitment to the irreversibility of the bilateral negotiations".
Then, UNSC Resolution 1860, adopted on 8 January during the IDF´s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, called for "renewed and urgent efforts by the parties and the international community to achieve a comprehensive peace based on the vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace with secure and recognized borders".
Palestinian negotiator Sa´eb Erakat issued a statement later complaining that Netanyahu "left us with nothing to negotiate as he systematically took nearly every permanent status issue off the table. Nor did he accept a Palestinian state; instead, he announced a series of conditions and qualifications that render a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state impossible … He blamed Palestinians for their own occupation, and then imposed a set of preconditions for negotiations that demand Palestinians give up their inalienable rights and surrender their national aspirations for a sovereign and independent Palestinian state."
No, Netanyahu did not give unqualified support for two democratic States -- the Palestinians called it first, bitterly joking that Netanyahu only seems to want a state-and-a-half.