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There Is an Israeli Consensus on the Basic Framework of Peace

(Prime Minister's Office) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - Prime Minister Netanyahu told the Jewish Agency Board of Governors on Tuesday: We are fast approaching the time when the majority of Jews will live in the Jewish state. We [in Israel] already have the largest number of Jews in the world, but in a few years, we will do something that has defied the Jewish people for over two millennia, that is that the majority of the Jews will live in the Jewish state in the Jewish land. The overwhelming majority of Jews in Israel and outside Israel, Israelis in Israel and friends of Israel outside Israel, agree on the basic framework of peace, assuming we had a peace partner who wanted to make peace with Israel. We seek to achieve a peace and mutual recognition between two states, two nation-states for two peoples....This is the core of the conflict. This conflict is about the Jewish state. It's about the persistent refusal to accept that the Jews have a right for a nation-state of their own....It precedes the question of boundaries; it precedes the question of territorial dispute. I said numerous times that I will accept a Palestinian state. Now President Abbas must stand before his people and he has to say these six words: "I will accept the Jewish state."...And the only way that it's going to happen is by the external pressure that says to the Palestinian leadership: "Just say it." We don't want a repeat of what happened when we withdrew from Gaza or from South Lebanon. I believe that this will require for Israel to maintain a long-term military presence along the Jordan River. There will be arguments about sovereignty, about territory, but I think that the question of demilitarization and a long-term military presence along the Jordan River are essential to guaranteeing any peace. A peace you cannot defend will not hold. A peace you can defend will. What we have to achieve is an end to conflict - not to create a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel to continue the conflict and try to dissolve Israel by flooding it with refugees or by inducing irredentist pressures on the Arabs of the Galilee or the Negev.
2011-06-29 00:00:00
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