Peres: Israel Has No Claim to West Bank
Tue Feb 24, 1:22 AM ET Add World - AP to My Yahoo!

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON - Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in turning over control of much of the West Bank to Yasser Arafat's Palestinians, said Monday that Israel has no moral claim to the land or to Gaza and must give up every inch of the territories.

Peres, in a speech after meetings with Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, said "time is short" — no more than four months — for Israel to come to terms with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.

"The opening is not for a long time," he said at a dinner sponsored by the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, a dovish private group.

While Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has proposed a withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank, Peres said the offer of his long-term political foe was inadequate and would only perpetuate conflict with the Palestinians.

Israel must give up all of the land that it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, he said. "If you keep 10 percent of the land you keep 100 percent of the conflict," Peres said.

His prescription for a pullback includes gradual withdrawal from the West Bank after Israel gives up all of Gaza to the Palestinians. "It is not a political decision, it is a moral decision," Peres said.

He said Israel should provide the Palestinians with a state that is viable and contiguous.

"I think Sharon is having a hard time making up his mind," Peres said. "It won't be simple. It won't be easy."

If Israel does not follow through with a total withdrawal, "catastrophe is waiting in the corner," he said.

Earlier, at a news conference in the doorway of the State Department, Peres flashed his long-standing optimism that the Palestinians wanted peace with Israel.

Also, he said, "good news" was emerging all over the world, with Libya pledging to end its nuclear weapons program and Cyprus on a path to settle its 30-year division.

But mostly, Peres was cheered by Sharon's partial pullback proposal while insisting it was far from enough to bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians.

Peres was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, along with Arafat and then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, for the Oslo accords that gave the Palestinians wider control of their lives and of parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

Six years later, the accord crumbled into the violence of a Palestinian uprising that targeted Israelis both in the territories and in Israeli itself and took the lives of hundreds of people on both side as Israel fought back fiercely.

Peres became the focus of criticism as a symbol of a process many Israelis believe allowed the Palestinians to gain strength and weapons for their battle against the Jewish state.

Still, now over 80, Peres continues to push for far-reaching Israeli concessions as a pathway to a Palestinian state that he and President Bush say can coexist peaceably with Israel.

Even with peacemaking virtually nonexistent now, Peres said there is "a new reality in the Middle East and Sharon has to face it like everyone else."

"We shouldn't be blind," he said of Israelis who remain skeptical of Israel giving up land and the Palestinians setting up a state on it.

Most Palestinians want to live in peace with Israel, he said. But Palestinian leaders must decide "which camp they want to live in," the one of terror or the one of counter-terror.

Three U.S. officials met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders last week in the Middle East and will report Friday to Powell and Saturday to Bush on their findings.

The White House and State Department gave no public account of the talks or what the officials found in the region. Nor did they offer any account of Peres' meetings with Powell and Rice.

Source: Yahoo! News

<font color=orange>Totally agree with old Peres on this! The Israelis SHOULD pull all the settlements out of the West Bank and Gaza and then build their security wall around the border. </font>

<font color = lightgreen>It is wonderful that Peres has come to this conclusion. Unfortunately, I have some bad news for him: even if Israel completely gives up all land taken in 1967, they will still have serious problems with violence from those Palestinians who wish to see Israel disappear forever. As I have said many times before, without some sort of miracle of diplomacy this conflict will not end until one side is completely decimated.</font>

yeah, the region will still have many problems, but they will be problems with small militant groups that will lose much of their credibility and popularity in Palestine once Israel completely pulls out of the W.B./Gaza. Militancy will still be present, but it will be slightly easier to contain. And Israel will finally have legality (and I daresay 'morality') on their side.

[ 02-25-2004, 11:59 PM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

Yep, Heirophant, I agree. If (a big IF) Israel were to give back all the land, then it would have the moral high ground. Better yet, if there were a Palestinian state, terrorist attacks by Palestinians could be viewed as an act of war, and Israel would be justified in responding by attacking an enemy state.

The way I see it, if there were two separate nations, the Palestinians would be faced with having to curtail the terrorism or face a fate similar to Afghanistan's when it harbors terrorists. ;) THAT just might keep them in check.

That has some interesting prospects TL .....

Giving people a stake encourages good behavior. If the Palestinians have something (a nation of their own) to lose if they misbehave, they just might get their s**t in order. ;) However, if left in a "nothing to lose" situation, they will continue to exercise terrorist tactics.

[ 02-26-2004, 01:53 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Agree with The Hierophant really - if Isreal just keeps holding out then its more ammo for the extremists. Theres not going to be any growth of a progressive movement under the conditions the Palestinians are under now, and whilst there will still be people wanting Isreal gone for ever there will be far fewer prepared to suicide bomb in order to get it.

However I certainly don't like the idea of the acts of terror being construed as acts of war once the Palestinians have a state. Thats completely ludicrous - just because those people would now be citizens of the state of Palestine doesn't mean that their actions are considered to represent that states policy. Only if the Palestinians completely failed to take action against those terrorists would Isreal be able to implicate the Palestinian state in any wrong doing. Richard Reed was English, doesn't mean that him lighting his shoelaces was an act of war by us against the USA.

A long time ago some men built a wall in Berlin. Boy, was that a flying success... [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]

That's what I said. The state would have to harbor or sponsor terrorism. Notice the Afghanistan comparison.

Sorry Timber, but it doesn't seem to be the inference given by the above quote. You say specifically that if Palestinians carry out attacks (as in anyone who happens to be a Palestinian, whether or not they have state authority) then Isreal would have the right to respond militarily. Maybe this is just poor wording, but this paragraph seems to be at odds with what you actually meant according to your last post. Please clarify...

<font color = lightgreen>A Palestinian state would serve only to give Palestinian terrorists a safe place in which to hide. Naturally, Israel would have to "defend themselves" from "military actions" taken by its new neighbor. In short, it would solve nothing.
Quite frankly, both sides have been acting like violent children for so long that neither of them deserve anything except for the rest of the world to wash their hands and walk away.

Like the ancient Gordian Knot, solutions to this particular problem do exist. Now all we need is a counterpart for Alexander the Great to implement such a solution. (since when do I subscribe to wishful thinking? :rolleyes: )</font>

Well, obviously I was unclear. I did say:
In this case I was speaking of our hypothetical Palestinian state when I said "Palestinians" and "it." Of course you cannot ascribe every individual's action to his or her government. However, if the government harbors, supports, or (quite possibly) is simply complicit to terrorists in its borders, Israel might be justified in viewing an attack as an act of war or at least going after the terrorists within the country's borders. That's what the US did with Afghanistan, and the world supported the action.

I put the "quite possibly" caveat in because I don't know how far down the line of culpability one would be able to go and still be able to justify linking the government to the actions of its nationals and terrorists in its borders. If our hypothetical Palestinian state were led by Yassir Arafat, would his level of complicity be enough to tie him to any terrorist acts? I don't know, but I think the view is generally held that he has a lot of ties to terrorist groups and doesn't try to reign them in very much at all.

Anyway, sorry for being unclear.

Yes, I understand where you are coming from however you have to understand the problems I had with your original wording. In fact its possibly quite telling that you assumed when you said "Palestinians" everyone would know you meant the state and people as a whole, as opposed to the exact definition of just "someone from Palestine". Lets make this clear - the terrorist attacks being carried out at present are not carried out by the majority of people, or with their consent. I see no reason why if a state were formed it would be complicit in terrorism or harbour terrorists. Your, admittedly unfortunate as opposed to deliberate, assumption that Palestinians engaging in terrorist activities have the support of the state in some manner is a little disturbing.

So basically what I'm trying to say is that the wording you used is a little Freudian for my liking. Like it or not we keep making the connection between Palestinian terrorists and Palestinians as a whole.

Oh, and on the Arafat question Isreal has a nice little card up their sleeves to deal with him, or not as is in fact the case. Their line on any Palestinian leader has always been that they won't consider them available to do business with if he has links to terrorism. I.e. if Arafat actually could control the terrorists then he is not the kind of person they would want to be dealing with. And of course, if he can't control the terrorists then whats the point of dealing with him anyway! They've used both lines on him at one stage or another, which is laughable really. The Isreali state has basically avoided seriously dealing with Palestinian leaders for quite some time using this Catch 22 tactic.

Well, your post made me realize that I actually don't know how much the palestinians support their terrorist members. So, I went and did a bit of research. Looking for Palestinians against terror turned up little evidence, though I thought I heard about a group in Palestine dedicated to opposing terror. However, research regarding Palestinian support for terror turned up something interesting.
and
Now, I also found information indicating the President Bush has said only a small minority of Palestinians support terror. If memory serves me correctly, this may have come from his 2003 State of the Union, but I'm not certain. I'd like to know what he based the statement on. I would think it unlikely that a majority of Palestinians would support terror, but the information my brief searching turned up indicated that is in fact the case. Feel free to correct me if you have better information.

[ 02-26-2004, 01:13 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Sorry not to have replied to this for so long, its been a bit of a busy week - mostly due to politics actually. So far since Monday I've been on a picket of the Isreali embassy (in support of the refuseniks), a debate on working class representation in politics, a carnival against student fees, a meeting to discuss autonomous Marxism with a contact of mine (just don't ask... because I don't know either...), and finally the Stop the War Coalition national conference. The disturbing thing is that thats a pretty normal week for me. Anyway, thats all completely off topic, I just felt like ranting for a while.

To respond to your surveys I should first point out that they are both the same survey, or at least appear to be so. Just reported by two different newspapers. If anything that in fact damages the impact of the survey in question as they report it in such drastically different manners that its hard to see exactly what the survey is proving at the end of the day. I find it hard to believe that the fact that 85% of Palestinians support a mutual ceasefire means that "Jew hatred" is at fever pitch, as the second article seems to claim. Their most damaging stat appears to be that a slight majority of Palestinians say terror attacks have helped their position, something which I would even agree with - but that doesn't necessarily mean I support those attacks. The American use of the Atom bomb almost certainly furthered America's goal of ending WW2, but that doesn't mean I support it!

I'm sorry I don't have any actual figures to counter with, but it seems fairly obvious to me that even if the fundamentalists are in the majority then terror tactics are not the best way forward - thats whats put the fundamentalists in the majority in the first place! Or at least, thats my take on it. If someone were to have to blink first then I'd say it would have to be the Isreali's, simply as they have a state structure and army and as a result it would be much harder for the Palestinians to try anything unilateral. Obviously a simultaneaous solution woiuld be best, but I'm presenting a logical extention of my own views onto a next best scenario.

Err, thats all a bit garbled... sorry.

If it is the same poll, it is the poll taken in 2 different years, Barry. 2002 and 2003.

How does one so busy attending political rallies find time to work or study? Don't burn out on the politics bandwagon. Take a break -- the world will still need fixing when you get back, I assure you. ;)

[ 03-01-2004, 11:58 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Well, if its two different polls then the fact that they are only taken a year apart but come to such radically different conclusions doesn't do my confidence in their methods any good I'm afraid. A year may be a long time in politics but its unlikely that core beliefs and feelings will have so radically changed in that kinf of time frame.

As for the work load, well, what really amazes me is that I still find time to post here!

I plan on taking a whopping huge break over the summer, as I'll be back in sleepy Surrey where politics is just different shades of conservative. Until then I'll just keep plugging away I suppose...