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Israel Cannot Make Peace Alone

[Guardian-UK] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - Looking back to the weeks preceding the Six-Day War, it may be difficult for you to imagine just how desperate life seemed for Israelis, ringed by peoples whose armies pointed their weapons towards us, whose leaders daily promised the imminent destruction of our state and whose newspapers carried crude cartoons of Jews being kicked off the face of the earth. We were once again people facing annihilation. We had no alternative but to defend ourselves, no strategic allies to ensure our survival. We stood alone. Israel fought an unwanted war to defend its very existence, and today there are still leaders who call for Israel to be wiped off the map. Our survival in 1967 is now, in the eyes of the world, the original sin of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Over the last 15 years, successive Israeli governments have initiated talks with the Palestinians in every conceivable permutation in an attempt to reach a settlement. In the 1990s, Israel withdrew from all the Palestinian cities in the West Bank, handing its affairs over to a Palestinian Authority. Nearly two years ago, Israel withdrew its troops and civilians from Gaza, with no preconditions. In the face of concessions that have threatened our own domestic consensus, the constant refrain has been the Palestinian refusal to end its violent attacks on our citizens. Palestinian violence is not a response to the capture of the West Bank and Gaza. From the emergence of the Zionist movement over 100 years ago, Arabs have opposed our claim to independence on our historic homeland, often violently. Our conflict is not territorial, it is national. In the wider Arab world, there is ever greater recognition that Israel will not disappear from the map. I take the offer of full normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world seriously; and I am ready to discuss the Arab peace initiative in an open and sincere manner. But the talks must be a discussion, not an ultimatum. Israel is prepared to make painful concessions to pay the price for a lasting and just peace that will allow the people of the Middle East to live in dignity and security. But as strong and resourceful as Israelis are, we cannot make peace alone.
2007-06-06 01:00:00
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