Netanyahu says there's no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[Jefferson23]

The prime minister's trip to Italy does little for Israel's prospects for peace with the Palestinians.

By Etgar Keret

The flight to Rome leaves in the middle of the night. When I finish packing my small travel suitcase, my wife gives me a scrap of orange notepaper. It isn’t meant for me; it’s for the prime minister. It reads: “Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, I beg you do everything in your power to bring peace, for the sake of the future of our children and yours. Thank you, Shira.”

I find this amusing, and she is offended. “What are you thinking?” I ask her. “That Bibi is like the Western Wall? That you can stick a note into a crack in him somewhere, pray a little and he’ll bring peace?”

“So forget the note,” she says. “Tell him something. Argue. Do something that will get him out of his bunker.”

“People don’t change their views that quickly,” I say. “Certainly Bibi doesn’t.”

“So you won’t succeed,” she says. “What do you have to lose? That you’ll look like a fool, the way I did with the note? So look like a fool, or like a pest. But at least try.”

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-says-there-s-no-solution-to-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-1.367759

[aranthus]

1. But you can have an agreement that's short of peace.

Sure there won't be peace unless the Arabs, including the Palestinians, accept Israel as a Jewish state. And no, they never will. But that doesn't mean that there can't be an agreement. The US and the Soviet Union ended the Cold War without making real peace until the fall of Communism. Israel and the Palestinians can reach a detente of sorts even though the Palestinians will never accept a Jewish state. It just takes the vision to see that that half a loaf is better than none, and the will to make it happen.

[Jefferson23]

2. You are optimistic then?

The real threat to Israel's Jewish character

By Shlomo Avineri

Israel is a Jewish state - this was the international legitimacy it received in the 1947 UN Partition Plan, this is the principle underlying its Declaration of Independence, Law of Return, Citizenship Law and a long list of laws, regulations and customs. All Israeli governments, left or right, followed this, and Israel's social reality is imbued with it. After a few hours in the country, a visitor from Mars would have no difficulty realizing that he had landed in a Jewish state.

What then is the rationale for the recently submitted bill entitled Basic Law on Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, spearheaded by MK Avi Dichter (Kadima )? The bill's sponsors say in its explanatory supplement that the law is "necessary even more so now when there are those who wish to abolish the Jewish people's right to a national home in its land and the recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people."

It's true that there are such groups, especially on the margins of the extreme academic left (many of them, incidentally, Jewish or former Israelis ). But no democratic country and no political party in any democratic country have questioned Israel's legitimacy. Yet some Israeli right-wingers prefer to view every criticism of Israeli policies as an assault on Israel's very existence.

The Israeli right wing prefers to overlook what really threatens Israel's Jewish character: our continued control of millions of Palestinians in the territories. Most of the bill's sponsors oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel, while others have joined the initiative probably out of sheer populism (or might not have carefully read the text ).

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-real-threat-to-israel-s-jewish-character-1.391647

[aranthus]

3. I'm realistic.

Let's say that Israel withdrew from the West Bank (except Jerusalem), and lifted the blockade of Gaza. Would the Palestinians agree to a peace agreement on those terms? No they wouldn't. They'd demand Jerusalem and right of return. If Israel threw in Jerusalem, would the Palestinians agree to a peace deal? Still no. They'd want right of return. Can Israel agree to either the return of Jerusalem and right of return? Absolutely not. The Israelis view both as existential issues. So the Palestinians' demands are for those things that the Israelis can never give up on. So a peace deal isn't possible. On that score, Netanyahu is right. The question Israelis then have to answer is whether it is in Israel's interest to continue to occupy the Palestinians indefinitely? Most would answer no. Just as the US is getting out of Iraq with the understanding that Iran or its related bad guys will likely take over, Israel has to choose between continuing the occupation or pulling out and risking that Palestine turns into a terror state continuing to attack them. Israel has no good options; only a choice of bad ones. But that's no excuse for not making a choice.

[Jefferson23]

4. With what you stated, I 'd say you're more optimistic than I am.

I do not see Israel without options, and right of return is not about full, but about an agreed upon number, with
reparations.

The West Bank is the main reason he is stalling imo, and the access to the water. I see hope for a peace agreement
when it comes to the isolation that Israel is experiencing with Egypt and Turkey..for that may be the catalyst
to move on a fair agreement. I do not believe Israel, despite its strong support from the U.S., will prefer to continue
the occupation if the cost of it is too high..I think they are possibly reaching that threshold.

[aranthus]

5. I don't know about that, but you're wrong about RoR.

Where do you get the idea that the Palestinians would settle for anything less than full RoR? They don't want just return of a few and reparations. They want Israel to declare a right of return.

[Jefferson23]

6. A right of return is not full and never was.

Abbas has said this before, he knows they would need to be reasonable.

snip* Abbas, himself a 1948 refugee, privately argued against the large-scale return of refugees in a meeting in March 2009: "On numbers of refugees, it is illogical to ask Israel to take 5 million, or indeed 1 million," he told officials. "That would mean the end of Israel."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/24/palestinians-10000-refugees-return-israel


The Palestinian Papers are clear, and when leaked, the Palestinians learned of the offer, which was contemptible
as the number was so low..but interesting how the situation and players have changed since then. You can read Livni's
response from 2008, no refugee return at all.

[azurnoir]

7. The RoR thing seems to be presented as all or nothing

by some here, usually those who promote nothing