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Israel's Quest for Peace

[Prime Minister's Office] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University on Sunday: Peace has always been our people's most ardent desire. Our prophets gave the world the vision of peace, we greet one another with wishes of peace, and our prayers conclude with the word "peace." I share President Obama's desire to bring about a new era of reconciliation in our region. I turn to all Arab leaders and say: "Let us meet. Let us speak of peace and let us make peace. I am ready to meet with you at any time. I am willing to go to Damascus, to Riyadh, to Beirut." To our Palestinian neighbors, I say: "Let's begin negotiations immediately without preconditions." In order to bring an end to the conflict, we must give an honest answer to the question: What is the root of the conflict? And the simple truth is that the root of the conflict was, and remains, the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland. Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. Many good people have told us that withdrawal from territories is the key to peace with the Palestinians. Well, we withdrew. But the fact is that every withdrawal was met with massive waves of terror, by suicide bombers and thousands of missiles. We evacuated every last inch of the Gaza Strip, we uprooted tens of settlements and evicted thousands of Israelis from their homes, and in response, we received a hail of missiles on our cities, towns and children. The claim that territorial withdrawals will bring peace with the Palestinians, or at least advance peace, has up until now not stood the test of reality. The connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel has lasted for more than 3,500 years. Judea and Samaria, the places where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, David and Solomon, and Isaiah and Jeremiah lived, is the land of our forefathers. The right of the Jewish people to a state in the Land of Israel does not derive from the catastrophes that have plagued our people. There are those who say that if the Holocaust had not occurred, the State of Israel would never have been established. But I say that if the State of Israel had been established earlier, the Holocaust would not have occurred. Within this homeland lives a large Palestinian community. We do not want to rule over them, we do not want to govern their lives, we do not want to impose either our flag or our culture on them. In my vision of peace, in this small land of ours, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect. The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel. Without this condition, there is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza. We must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hizbullah and Iran. It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarized. Israel needs defensible borders, and Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel with continued religious freedom for all faiths. The Palestinian refugee problem must be solved outside Israel's borders. The territorial question will be discussed as part of the final peace agreement. In the meantime, we have no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements. But there is a need to enable the residents to live normal lives. The settlers are not the enemies of peace. Rather, they are an integral part of our people, a principled, pioneering and Zionist public. With a Palestinian leadershi
2009-06-15 06:00:00
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