Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a major address today to the Jewish Agency Board of Governors, outlining “the basic framework of peace” that he termed the “basic consensus” supported by “the overwhelming majority of Israelis.” Here is the portion of the address describing the principles “upon which most of us unite:”
The first is that we seek to achieve a peace and mutual recognition between two states, two nation-states for two peoples: a Jewish State which means a nation-state, the nation-state of the Jewish people, Israel, and a nation-state for the Palestinians. We pointed this out right up front because this is the core of the conflict….It precedes the question of boundaries; it precedes the question of territorial dispute; it is a dispute against our very right to exist as a sovereign Jewish State.
It has always been that. It’s just been masked but it explains why this conflict extended itself for half a century – from 1920 till 1967 when there were no “territories”; no Israeli soldiers in Judea, Samaria or Gaza; no refugees for half that time; and Jerusalem was divided…. It was about our existence as a Jewish State; a refusal to accept this idea of Zionism before the establishment of the State and a refusal to accept the idea of a Jewish State after it’s existed. And that has not disappeared….
This remains the heart of the problem. And I address this problem. I understand that we will have to have a historic compromise which is very painful so I stood before my people, people of Israel and I said numerous times that I will accept a Palestinian state. Now President Abbas must stand before his people and he has to say these six words, “I will accept the Jewish State”.
He has to say it. And I will repeat this over and over and over again because it is the attempt to fudge, it’s the attempt to fudge and evade and obscure this essential component of peace; the removal of this basic obstacle to peace that is required and this is what the international community must face up to.
And the only way that it’s going to happen is by the external pressure that says to the Palestinian leadership: Just say it. In many ways, all that pressure has been accumulated on Israel to arrive at painful understandings…. And yet the core of the conflict is hardly addressed. Well, I address it, and you should address it, and any fair-minded person and any peace-loving person should address it and say to the Palestinian leadership: Just say the six words – “I will accept the Jewish state”. Because once they say it, we will move inexorably towards peace.
The second point derives from the first, and that is that the refugee problems are settled in these two respective states – the question of Palestinian refugees will be resolved in the Palestinian state and not in Israel. Just as the question of Jewish refugees caused by that same Arab assault on Israel in 1948, was resolved within the Jewish state.
The Arab attack, the attack of five Arab armies, with the Palestinians, on the embryonic Jewish state caused two refugee problems. About 650,000 Palestinian refugees and a somewhat larger number of Jewish refugees expelled from Arab states. Tiny Israel absorbed all the Jewish refugees and the vast Arab world refused to absorb the Palestinian refugees, and neither justice nor common sense mandates that 63 years later, the Arab world or the Palestinians will come to us and say: Now, absorb the great-great-grandchildren of this part of the refugee problem that we created ourselves.
The solution to the refugee problem, both in a practical sense and in the question of justice has to be addressed in the Palestinian state and not at the expense of the solitary, the one and only Jewish state….
The third point is, of course, the demilitarization of the Palestinian state. We don’t want a repeat of what happened when we withdrew from Gaza or from South Lebanon. I believe that this will require for Israel to maintain a long-term military presence along the Jordan River. There will be arguments about sovereignty, about territory, but I think that the question of demilitarization and a long-term military presence along the Jordan River are essential to guaranteeing any peace. A peace you cannot defend will not hold. A peace you can defend will.
The fourth point is to incorporate what are called the settlement blocs, these large, urban communities that are fairly dense and concentrated alongside Greater Tel Aviv and Greater Jerusalem, and other areas of critical, strategic and national importance in the final borders of Israel. We believe also that Jerusalem must remain united, under Israeli sovereignty. It’s the only time in its millennial history that it has assured the free and unfettered access of all three monotheistic religions to their holy places.
And the last is, of course, the ending of the conflict, the ending of the claims…. [W]hat we have to achieve is an end to conflict. Not to create a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel to continue the conflict and try to dissolve Israel by flooding it with refugees or by inducing irredentist pressures on the Arabs of the Galilee or the Negev, or the idea of a binational state – but actually end the conflict, accept the Jewish state and alongside it a Palestinian state so that we may have peace for ourselves and our children and our grandchildren and for future generations, and not a continuation.
These are, I believe, principles that coalesce the overwhelming majority of Israelis today. They transcend political and partisan differences – not all of them, but most of them. They’re not easy. They’re hard, extremely hard for me and for many others, but they are the conditions that we, I believe, could set out and agree to if we had a Palestinian leadership that was courageous and bold, and actually lanced the boil and spoke the truth to its people as we speak the truth to our people.
Over at Contentions today, I have set forth a hypothetical Quartet statement, based on President Obama's recent speeches and the often-stated principles of the Quartet itself, that would reflect the above framework of peace.