Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu delivered a clear message to Jews and the United States on Thursday, the 109th anniversary of the death of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, that there is no peace without security.
“Peace is based on security,” said the Prime Minister. It is not based on goodwill and legitimacy as is believed. It is based, first of all, on our ability to defend ourselves.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kelly is n Jordan on Thursday prior to talks on Friday and Saturday with Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Netanyahu have made every effort prior to his arrival to justify their positions, and the memorial ceremony for Herzl was a golden gift of timing for Israel.
Kerry is carrying with him the coffin of the peace process that the United States has been treating as a live animal since its inception more than 20 years ago. Netanyahu’s speech emphasized security and did not even hint about the status of Jerusalem or of borders for a Palestinian Authority state.
Without security, without the army, the establishment of which Herzl called for, we will be unable to defend the peace, we will be unable to defend ourselves if the peace frays. A basic condition for the existence of peace, for achieving it and for preserving it is security,” he declared.
Prime Minister Netanyahu also cast aside illusions of the international community that satisfying Arab world demands will change attitudes towards Jews and Israel.
“Let no one among us delude him or herself that if we make a peace agreement with the Palestinians, that this agreement would eliminate the wild defamation of the state of the Jews. What has been the lot of the Jews beforehand, for generations, today is the lot of the state of the Jews. Peace is desirable in and of itself,” he said.
Kerry began his 10-day Middle East and Asian junket last Friday, arriving in Doha. Except for India, his stop-off points have been in countries directly related to the Iranian nuclear threat, the Syrian civil war and the Arab-Israel conflict.