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Will Israeli Territorial Concessions Bring Peace?
(Washington Post) Lally Weymouth interviews Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon - Q: Secretary Kerry recently said the lack of resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue is leading to street anger and recruitment for the Islamic State. Ya'alon: Unfortunately, we find the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dominated by too many misconceptions. We don't find any linkage between the uprising in Tunisia, the revolution in Egypt, the sectarian conflict in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mainly, these come from the Sunni-Shia conflict, without any connection to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The core of the conflict is their reluctance to recognize our right to exist as a nation state of the Jewish people - whether it is Abu Mazen [Abbas] or his predecessor Arafat. There are many who believe that just having some territorial concessions will conclude it. But I don't think this is right. Q: Will territorial concessions bring peace? Ya'alon: No, they would be another stage of the Palestinian conflict, as we experienced in the Gaza Strip. We disengaged from the Gaza Strip to address their territorial grievances. They went on attacking us. The conflict is about the existence of the Jewish state and not about the creation of the Palestinian one. Any territory that was delivered to them after Oslo became a safe haven for terrorists. Bearing that in mind, to conclude that after the [recent] military operation in Gaza this is a time for another withdrawal from Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] is irrational.