|
Trending Topics
|
Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/03/does-israel-want-peace/
Does Israel Want Peace?
(Telegraph-UK) David Harris - Opposite UN headquarters in New York is a large wall inscribed with the words: "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." That vision of peace came from the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,700 years ago, and captured the essence of the Jewish quest for peace over millennia. Israel's Declaration of Independence included: "We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness," reflecting Hebrew Psalm 34, written more than two millennia ago. But Israel's outstretched hand was rejected. The result was a war of annihilation launched by five Arab armies, the first of several wars. Israelis need no sanctimonious lectures from afar about the virtues of peace. They understood those virtues better than most. What they needed were genuine peace partners. To achieve peace in 1979, Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreed to a full withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, three times the size of Israel itself, and from the strategic depth it represented. Yitzhak Rabin agreed to more Israeli concessions with Jordan for a peace treaty in 1994. In 2020, Israel chose a normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates over partial annexation of the disputed West Bank. In addition, the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 could have led to peaceful coexistence, but was used by Hamas to create a new launching pad for its war to the death with the Jewish state. Anyone visiting Israel and speaking with people would be hard-pressed to find an Israeli who welcomes decades of army reserve duty, rejoices as their children enter life-and-death military service, looks forward to 3 a.m. dashes to bomb shelters while carrying toddlers or helping elderly relatives, or relaxes on a bus while wondering whether a nearby package contains groceries or nail bombs. The writer is executive vice chair of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).