Netanyahu Confirms Israel Ready for ‘Painful Compromises’

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية W460

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cheering U.S. Congress on Tuesday he was willing to make "painful compromises" for peace with the Palestinians, but he offered little concrete to entice Palestinians back to the bargaining table.

By giving such a high-profile speech before overwhelmingly supportive U.S. lawmakers, Netanyahu was able to demonstrate to Israelis that he retains strong backing in the United States despite his frosty relations with President Barack Obama.

He also moved the needle on territorial compromise, for the first time explicitly saying in his address that Israel would have to give up some West Bank settlements.

But Palestinians immediately rejected his overall peace package, which for the most part was a recycling of previously stated positions that the Palestinians had turned down. One senior Palestinian official even dubbed Netanyahu's peace blueprint a "declaration of war."

Speaking before a sympathetic Congress that showered him with more than two dozen sustained standing ovations, Netanyahu said Israel wants and needs peace and would make "generous" territorial concessions. Under any final peace accord, he added, "some settlements will be beyond Israel's borders."

Undercutting his overture was his insistence that Israel hold onto major settlement blocs and all of contested Jerusalem, that his country maintain a long-term military presence on the eastern edge of the West Bank and that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas scuttle his power-sharing agreement with the violently anti-Israel Hamas militants.

He also restated Israel's refusal to repatriate millions of Palestinians who lost homes in Israel during the fighting over the Jewish state's 1948 creation.

Unlike the Americans, Palestinians had no accolades for Netanyahu.

In the West Bank, Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian official, called the speech "a declaration of war against the Palestinians."

"This is an escalation and unfortunately, it received a standing ovation," he said, noting that Netanyahu had rejected Palestinian demands on central issues such as borders, competing claims to Jerusalem and the fate of refugees.

In Gaza, the Islamic militant Hamas fumed that "Netanyahu denied us all our rights."

"We must work to adopt an Arab and Palestinian strategy based on the right of resistance," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, referring to armed attacks on Israeli targets.

In lieu of negotiations, Abbas is campaigning to obtain U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood when the General Assembly meets in September. Both Israel and the United States oppose this strategy, calling instead for the negotiated solution that has been the cornerstone of two decades of peace efforts.

Abbas is to meet with leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization and his Fatah movement on Wednesday to discuss their next move. The Palestinians have developed an alternate strategy to bring life to moribund negotiations, largely on hold since 2008, and have said they will seek U.N. recognition of their state in September.

Netanyahu came to the U.S. in a fighting mood, sparring even before he landed with Obama, who hours before had expressed support for drawing future borders on the basis of the boundaries Israel had before capturing east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.

Netanyahu repeatedly challenged the president's position, ignoring Obama's assertion that the territorial markers could be adjusted through mutually agreed land swaps. The Palestinians accept that principle, which would allow Israel to retain major West Bank settlement blocs and help to assure its security.

In his speech before Congress, Netanyahu backed off from this dispute, acknowledging that the president had not called for a return to Israel's prewar borders. Israeli officials said that was because Obama sharpened his position on this matter, but it is possible Netanyahu felt he could ease the assault because of the tremendous outpouring of support he received in Congress and, the night before, at a meeting of the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

That support in the United States has allowed Netanyahu in the past to fend off Obama's demands that he do more to advance peacemaking by freezing settlement construction.

Obama has, in large part, staked his reputation in the Muslim world on finding a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But he has not been able to draw Israelis and Palestinians back to the bargaining table for sustained talks. The Palestinians are refusing to return as long as Israeli settlement construction continues on land they want for a future state.

Netanyahu, early in his speech, congratulated the United States for killing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, wishing him "good riddance." He dismissed shouts from an anti-Israel protester as evidence that freedom of speech is alive and well in the United States and is respected there and in Israel.

Comments 4
Default-user-icon Muhamad (Guest) 25 May 2011, 13:59

This Zionist is nothing but a lier flipfloping, his policy is very provocative

Default-user-icon Muhamad (Guest) 25 May 2011, 18:05

The dangerous actions of the Zionist regime
are by isolating the Jewish state from its neighbours and
destroying every attempt for better relations,
especially the case of the Lebanese Israeli's borders, where we
all know that is gaurded by UN forces and Lebanese army,
creating more secured area than many locations inside
Israel. The Zionist regime never appreciated these
efforts,they paid back by violating the Lebanese air space,
continue to occupy a chunk of Lebanon including the provocative
and anti-Lebanese policy helping terrorist bank to rally
and raise more fund from the International terrorist
groups in support to Hezbollah and other Palestinian
organizations, which is very imposible to the Lebanese government in
deportting them back as terrorist and criminals to
where they came from (Palestinian from Palestine and
Israel).
We all understand the danger might fall, but we
can't live the ellusion that it might or may not come, we
need a new strategy by seeing the real natural face of the middle east as
many mixed cultures and religions, we have learned in the
past that fascistic ideology, which burned Europe and its
masters causing damages any where it landed, adopting this
policy in the middle east is unexceptable and will bring more
destruction than you can immagine to the region.
Europe was more divided among its nations based on religion,
culture, kingdoms, unions and identities, but today is more
united and they put the past behind.
The Zionist and Zionism is a failure to the jewish people
and the region, similar to fascim, based on the fact every
one in the region is an enemy, that is not true, their policy is
the real enemy and the generator for more threats in the
region

Default-user-icon Muhamad (Guest) 25 May 2011, 18:06

How many more Palestinian you have to kill enable to revenge for the Holocaust? from the world who are not responsible and more christians have died during the same war. All the zionist talks the same like any other regime in the region, like Stalin, Hitler, Sadam, Assad and Gadaffi. People of Israel need a regime change to get them the peace they really dream about.

Default-user-icon Mohammad Beiruti (Guest) 25 May 2011, 22:35

Are zionists the GOG and MAGOG? It seems like they are. One thing is for sure, israel will not survive in the middle east for long. It will be dismantled and replaced with what it was, which is Palestine. Enough lying you zionazis, the world is sick of you. Netanyahu is nothing but a war criminal and liar.