I’m carefully going over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Speech to the United Nations General Assembly, and I see these very clear words:
Our challenge is to transform these common interests to create a productive partnership. One that would build a more secure, peaceful and prosperous Middle East. Together we can strengthen regional security. We can advance projects in water, agriculture, in transportation, in health, in energy, in so many fields. I believe the partnership between us can also help facilitate peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Many have long assumed that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can help facilitate a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab World… …That’s why in any peace agreement, which will obviously necessitate a territorial compromise, I will always insist that Israel be able to defend itself by itself against any threat. (emphasis mine)
I can’t find any statement in his speech to make me believe that he has given up on the “Two State Solution.” I also don’t like the fact that he referred to Mahmoud Abbas as “president.”
I don’t see what Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) is so sure is a change in policy.
Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Hotovely said Netanyahu’s speech sent a loud and clear message that the so-called “two-state solution” is dead. “The speech yesterday was the way to tell the world that the two-state solution had died. Netanyahu told the world that Abbas and Hamas are the same, they want to destroy Israel,” she said.
Maybe her English isn’t that good or she’s just reading her own thoughts into her boss’s speech. The Arutz 7 reporter should have asked her to quote the words on which she’s basing this assumption. Sorry Charley, but I just don’t see it.
Even my good friend Ruthie Blum and I don’t agree about the value of Bibi’s speech. I found her Israel Hayom article, Words Matter, too optimistic. I even dared to call her a “moderate” in our public facebook discussion.
For me, the unabashed purist/extremist I need to hear two very simple things from our Prime Minister. I want steps and conclusions from the observations he makes so very clearly in his foreign speeches:
- No more negotiations for a “Palestinian State” in land Israel liberated in the defensive war, June, 1967. On the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, I admit that proposing such a state, giving our Land to our enemy was a great sin!
- Due to the fact that the so-called United Nations “Human Rights” Council and other UN bodies concentrate on condemning Israel, rather than true international problems, I don’t see the point in Israel’s continued membership in this body. United Nations membership has not done Israel any good. We are just supporting our enemies here, so I bid you farewell. Israel is withdrawing its membership.