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Israel Has Worked since 1948 to Make Peace with the Palestinians

(Jerusalem Post) Amb. Dore Gold interviewed by Tovah Lazaroff - In February, Amnesty International alleged that Israel has been guilty of the crime of apartheid since its inception in 1948. For Dore Gold, Israel's ambassador to the UN from 1997 to 1999, the Amnesty report and others have little to do with matters of law and much more to do with anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of the State of Israel. "What Amnesty has done is to advance their narrative about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by using a loaded term like 'apartheid' and then insisting that it is a legal term," said Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. "This method of slandering Israel by coating phony narratives with legality is something which Israel's adversaries do all the time," Gold said, adding that this "is a case of 'fake law.'" It is standard practice for anti-Semites to "seek accusations which they know will ignite hatred against the Jewish people....Today the most effective instrument in the hands of anti-Semites is to say that Israel is an apartheid regime." Article 7 of the Rome Statute, that is a common reference point for the ICC, refers to an apartheid regime as a "permanent arrangement." That is hardly the case, even if Israel adopted South African practices, which it did not. The narrative relies on a false claim that Israel, from the start, intended to continuously oppress the Palestinian people, Gold said. In reality Israel has worked from the start to make peace with the Palestinians. Israel negotiated with the PLO for the creation of the Palestinian Authority as a self-governing body over territory in the West Bank, effectively not disempowering the Palestinians. "It may not be ideal," but the arrangement is not one of "an apartheid regime" and, "most of all, it is not a permanent arrangement. Israeli governments have been trying to negotiate with legitimate representatives of the Palestinians for a way out. The only reason the PA lacks additional autonomy is because of the hard line taken by Abbas and his supporters."
2022-02-21 00:00:00
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