Deputy FM to Arab world: Israel extends its hand in peace
In op-ed in pan-Arab daily, Ayalon urges Arab world to join Israel in defeating forces of extremism.
By Haaretz Service Tags: Israel news Middle East peaceDeputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon published the following op-ed in A-sharq Alawsat on Tuesday:
Since the reestablishment of our state, Israeli leaders have sought peace with their Arab neighbors. Our Declaration of Independence, Israel's founding document that expressed our hopes and dreams reads, "We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help." These words are as true today as when they were first written in 1948. Sadly, sixty one year later, only two nations, Jordan and Egypt, have accepted these principles and made peace with the Jewish State.
Recently the Israeli government has made significant steps to restart negotiations with the Palestinians and reach out to the Arab world. In his Bar-Ilan speech in June, Prime Minister Netanyahu clearly stated his acceptance of a Palestinians state living side by side in peace and security with the State of Israel. My government has removed hundreds of roadblocks to improve access and movement for Palestinians and has assisted the facilitation of economic developments in the West Bank, through close cooperation with international parties to expedite projects and remove bottlenecks.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a right-wing government has, in an unprecedented move, declared it would refrain from building new settlements in the West Bank. All of these moves taken together amply demonstrate Israel's willingness for peace.
This Israeli government is also committed to extend a hand to all of our Arab neighbors, its leaders and its citizens, to join together to face some of the major challenges facing us all in the coming years.
For the first time in many years, we find ourselves on the same side in seeking to quell and defeat the forces of extremism and destruction in our region. While many see the threat from Iran directed solely at Israel, we in the region know differently. Together, we understand the menace that emanates from the extremist regime in Tehran. A regime that seeks to export its extremist ideology across the region and beyond, while arming terrorist groups that seek to destabilize moderate Sunni regimes and aiming for hegemonic control of the Middle East and far beyond.
The Iranian regime has many tentacles spread out across the region sowing destruction and despair amongst the people. The enemy of the people of Lebanon is not Israel, but Hizbullah. The enemy of the Palestinian people is not Israel, but Hamas. The enemy of the Egyptian people is not Israel, but militant Islamist opposition groups. All of these groups, and many others, receive their commands from Iran, who wish to control and suppress any aspirations the region has towards freedom and advancement.
Iran seeks to hold an entire region, including its own people, to ransom and keep it engaged in conflicts orchestrated and directed from Tehran. Whether it is in Morocco, Iraq or Yemen, Iran is constantly interfering with Arab sovereignty for their own nefarious gain. Israel and its Sunni neighbors alike are in the sights of Khameini, Ahmadinejad and their minions.
If Iran is able to attain nuclear weapons, the situation becomes inexplicably and inexorably worse. The Iranian regime has demonstrated that if feels unrestricted in its ability to dominate our region, a nuclear umbrella will only embolden its acolytes to act unrestrained to the detriment of us all. Only together can we face this threat and remove it.
Another issue that entails mutual political will to overcome is the threat of climate change to our region. Many reports and organizations are pinpointing the Middle East as an area that will suffer gravely as rain falls even more infrequently and temperatures rise.
Recently, the leading international scholars on climate change met in Copenhagen and released an important report on this issue. They claimed that climate change will exacerbate conflicts and increase strains and violence among competing groups. We are already witnessing water rights and growing desertification as underlying reasons for the intensification of conflicts in our region.
"Making the desert bloom" has been a core component of the Zionist ethos and successes throughout the decades. Israel has been able to turn desert into arable land and barren landscapes into forests. We constantly share our agricultural miracles with our friends in Africa and Asia and it is for this reason that many countries of the developing world have sought partnership with Israel in addressing their own agricultural challenges.
However, as Israel's founding fathers wrote in 1948, Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East. Our partners in peace, Jordan and Egypt, and especially the Palestinian Authority, bear witness to our endeavors in this direction. Israel has actively cooperated with Egypt on the "Mubarak Project" for the establishment of an irrigation demonstration system in Nubariya and annually trains hundreds of Jordanians in Israel in fields such as sustainable eco-friendly agricultural methods.
For us to be able to face these and many other challenges, we need to break with the paradigms of the past. The Jewish People are here because of our historical, legal, moral and national rights.
Those naysayers who can not countenance a Jewish political presence in the region will doom all of us to many more decades of conflict and instability. It is time for courageous leaders to emanate from the Arab world as did Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1979 and Jordan's King Hussein in 1994 and recognize that peaceful coexistence is far better for all of our people than enduring conflict and enmity.
We recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative is an important document, and is welcomed in Israel as a crack in the denial of an Arab recognition of Israel. However, like the Palestinian Authority's dictates to Israel on the peace process, it remains frozen in 1993.
Since the historic handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, Israel has taken major strides both politically and strategically towards the Palestinian position.
Both in 2000 at Camp David and in 2008 during the Annapolis process, Israeli prime ministers offered the Palestinians everything possible for peace and on both occasions the Palestinian leadership rejected these offers. The Palestinian Authority, like the Arab Peace Initiative, is still holding to its maximalist positions and has not moved an inch towards Israel since 1993. These positions are obviously untenable for peace and reflect a worldview that ignores Israel's significant gestures and seeks to enforce a solution that will mean the end of the Jewish State. Recent Palestinian and Arab League declarations only enforce this view.
It is surely time to look to the future and break with former intransigencies to create a better future for all the people of the region. Israel has gone very far and is prepared to do its part, but we must be met by a willing partner. Without this, the region is doomed to more conflict and will negate the unity of purpose in the Middle East that is necessary to face the mounting challenges from without and within.
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Please advise to me events of region in 1947 1978 2000
I have read this so called peace agreement. It is a war agreement from the Arab League trying to accomplish what the Arab world couldnt do with force. There is nothing peaceful about it other than the means to destroy Israel and its an insult to anyone who actually want peace. When the Arabs act in peace it will happen. To this date the Arab world continues to prevent peace and promote racism. Its a sad state. Jordan Palestine is a perfect example with laws banning Jews from citizenship and land ownership. Why has the Arab world rejected Israel? Why doesn the Arab world reject history? Why does the Arab world continue to prevent peace?
Oh yeah..I forgot, there never was one.
I'm Palestinian and when I had my Y-DNA I came up as J1e...the other thing about J1s is there is a marker called L147..it's known as the Abraham marker and I'm positive for that also..so you can be J1 but not be positive..i.e..a regular arab. Palestinians are the original hebrews..netanyahu, lieberman are not...I could be wrong, but I just don't see it in them..
I guess that war in 67 epitomised Israel's desire to live in "peace" - that war was about stealing land and nothing else. If it was a land-for-peace strategy, then why are the Palestinians still suffering to this day? Why is the Golan and Shebaa Farms still under Israeli control? Nobody believes a word that this regime spews.
of full recognition of Israel by all 22 Arab states in exchange for Israel retreating back to the 67 borders. You can't say one thing "we want peace" and continue building settlements as actions speak much louder than words. Look at the reaction of the settler/thugs to the measly farce of a 10 month freeze that excludes 3000 homes, public buildings and East Jerusalem. The settler problem, and it is a huge liability for the State of Israel, was created by Israeli leaders such as Sharon. Now is pay back time.
""""Since the historic handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, Israel has taken major strides both politically and strategically towards the Palestinian position."""" Indeed, it did, Minister Ayalon. since that handshake Israel has flooded the Palestinian lands with 300,000 fanatical settlers. Might that have something to do with the current stalemate ??? David
... Please explain to me if i am wrong, and if I am please exaplain in detail. You Can email me at alwayslearning@live.ca you had such confidence when you posted your first post, I hope it has not fleeted from you as I would very much like to better understand the mindset of those who would espouse such illogical statements. I look forward to hearing from you, if I don't I must admist, I will be terribly disappointed.
I Love how so many peoples on this this talkback wish to cite that since the Saudi's put forward a peace plan and since Israel didn't accept that Israel is now in the wrong, as if to say that Rejection of a peace agreement puts the rejecting party in the wrong. So if this is true, how many of you people, like Fares, believed that Arabs and Palestinians were in the wrong for 1937, 1948, 1978? 2000? and if this is the case, shouldn't a charge be posted against Palestinians for being in the wrong so many times and drawing out the conflict, for forcing Israel to incurr a cost a result of these decisions? and as such why shouldn't this cost be paid out in the only thing of value? Land, for example Jersualem, if as your posts states, the refusal of a peace offer shifts the blame, than surely you should agree that Jerusalem should be Jewish for the blame of rejecting 37,48,78,2000? or are you people just bias and using the Saudi Peace Initiative for its greatest purpose, PROPAGANDA
The Arabs took a bold step and offered Israel full peace and recognition with the entire region in exchange for a Palestinian State and sharing of Jerusalem. The Israelis are the ones who rejected it. What does Israel want? What is left for the Palestinians to give up? Ever since Israel's creation, the Palestinians are left with a small fraction of their former lands which is divided into pieces and 3 million Palestinians live as refugees as a result of expulsions from Israel. What do the Palestinians have left to give?
if Alice believes the esteemed deputy FM, I will.
The word I keep seeing everywhere is Haplogroup J1, it's the stuff in DNA that says who humans are and where they came from. Regardless, Haplogroup J1's are calling themselves kin. Now this all seemed rather boring and lukewarm until you realize they were Arabs and Hebrews calling each other kin. This trend began about a year ago but in that time I've seen it grow by another 50% or more. I just would like to know why the media has not picked up on these stories. If they are not aware of the trend they will be soon because it's growing as fast as the price of oil, see for yourself by doing a Haplogroup J1 Google search. Facebook has a couple of Haplogroup J1 groups and they are expanding very fast.
nation that wanted to 'reestablish' itself on its historic territory, insisted that a country that was there be split up, and the people living there had to move, denying the existance of those people as an identity, and that denied people that had been born within its new borders citizenship based on their ethnicity? How'd that work out for him?
Putting up hectares of plastic greenhouses staffed by low paid workers from Thailand and taking water from the Galilee to sell melons, tomatoes and flowers to european supermarkets, chemical intensive agriculture with a massive abuse of the enviroment. And they teach this to Jordanian farmers...well done Israel
If the region is doomed to more conflicts it will not be because of the Palestinains because they already given 72% of their lands.
If Israelis want peace, they can have it tomorrow: Withdraw to the 1967 borders and agree to a just solution to the refugee problem. Unless and until they do that, their words will be seen for what they are, lies.
Zealous extremism in all forms deserves defeat. Israel and the Arab world should join in that endeavor. Extremism takes many forms. Examples include the occupation of Palestine and all of the accompanying abuses of Palestinians, the wanton destruction in Gaza by the Israeli invasion, harboring of Israeli settlers that wreak havoc against Palestinians, as well as extremism directed against Israel, Europe, Russia and the USA. If Israel wants Arab cooperation, it needs to do some house-cleaning among its own policies, practices and people. The Saudi Peace Plan of 2002 proposed a strategy for Middle East security. Israel has the key to success if it begins within itself.
If Israel want to extend its hand in peace, it can do it by accepting UN resolutions calling for full withdrawal from occupied territories including East Jerusalem.
"Since the historic handshake on the White House lawn, Israel has taken towards the Palestinian position.' Yes indeed, major strides to gobble up Palestinian territory, settle it with illegal settlements and steal even more of the water. No strides at all though on Jerusalem, Right of Return, illegal outposts, the siege of Gaza or the little matter of Palestinian independence. The Minister's words are just a hollow mockery of reality, the usual Israeli trick of saying one thing and doing the opposite.
"My government has removed hundreds of roadblocks" : could someone from Machsom Watch please confirm this statement ?
By blaming everything on intransigence by Palestinians, and Arabs in general, while proclaiming all of the "wonderful" things that Israel has done (or at least claims to have done), and publishing this op-ed, now Ayalon can sit back and wait for the inevitable flames from Arabs and then point to them as further proof of Arab intransigence. Completely provocative and utterly disingenuous, of course, but the average reader probably won't understand that. Also entirely self-serving, of course. An excellent piece of propaganda, written by a master.