[Jerusalem Post] Dan Diker - Prime Minister Olmert and Foreign Minister Livni have expended the best of their political and diplomatic capital battling the so-called Palestinian "right of return" to Israel. Olmert has worked endlessly over the past year to convince Abbas to concede on the issue. He also singled out the "right of return" as the deal-breaker in the Saudi peace initiative. Livni's diplomacy has positioned the "right of return" as the single major threat to Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state. The issue is a "non-starter" politically and diplomatically. There is "wall-to-wall" agreement in Israel rejecting the "right of return" to Israel. Israel is therefore mistaken to waste most of its diplomatic energy "killing" the Palestinian "right of return," when there is no danger that Israel will be forced to absorb millions of Arab refugees. Diplomatically, Israel has already won that battle. But on two other "core issues," borders and Jerusalem, that are no less critical to Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state, and are today in great peril, Israel has a bloody diplomatic fight ahead. Israel must therefore insist on its rightful and well-established claims backed by international law and U.S. diplomatic assurances to demand defensible borders opposite Palestinian demands for a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice lines.
2007-10-16 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive