Denying Israel's right to exist is no basis for a settlement

NOT everybody got the message in Barack Obama's Cairo speech, that Middle East peace requires compromise.

The Israelis did, demonstrated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech on Sunday proposing a new peace process. In return for accepting Israel as a Jewish nation he offered the Palestinians a two-state solution. But Israel's opponents are not having any of it. The Palestinian Authority says Mr Netanyahu's speech "torpedoed" peace initiatives.

This was a pointless, posturing response which reflects the mentality of those members of the Palestinian political elite who prefer nihilism to negotiation and are happier denouncing Israel than dealing with it.

And it reflects the mindset of those who want Israel treated as a pariah and who attempt to intimidate any individual or organisation that accepts the Jewish state's right to exist.

It is a mindset that shapes the belief that Israel is an enemy to be destroyed, held in the Hezbollah terrorist training camps in the south of Lebanon, the Fatah government offices on the West Bank and in the Hamas arsenals of the Gaza Strip.

And it is a mindset which permeates perceptions of Israel adhered to by people all over the world who want the Jewish state gone. Including people in Australia who abhor The Australian's commitment to the survival of the state of Israel.

On Saturday this newspaper published an editorial supporting Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard's plan to visit Israel as an opportunity to express Australia's support for a two-state solution.



This outraged members of pro-Palestinian groups who responded with emails that less debated the newspaper's position than demanded it change.

It didn't work. The Australian is pleased to publish well-argued opinion pieces and letters from all sides of the Middle East debate that are temperate in tone. But it has not, does not and will not, ever surrender to intellectual intimidation.

The sheer venom of Israel's enemies this reflects demonstrates how hard it will be for President Obama to broker a deal. Israel wants peace, albeit not at any price. Mr Netanyahu will only accept a deal which acknowledges the country as a Jewish state and which ensures its security against terror attack, outright invasion or obliteration by Iran, where the re-elected Ahmadinejad regime makes no secret of its nuclear ambitions.

And Mr Netanyahu will only accept a peace he can sell to an electorate in no mood for surrender after Hamas used Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2006 to create a new base for terror attacks. And there is no doubting the Israeli Prime Minister will bargain hard on all sorts of issues - from the exchange of land for settlements Israel should give up on the West Bank to the strength of Palestinian police force.

But he is prepared to bargain, just as Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was in Oslo in 1993, just as his successor Ehud Barak was at Camp David in 2000. On both occasions Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat backed away from a two-state solution, but in talking at all he did more than his heirs in the Palestinian factions appear prepared to do now. In rejecting Mr Netanyahu's proposal, the Palestinian leadership is betraying its people who need a permanent peace and functioning economy. Perhaps this is an opening gambit - or perhaps it reflects a permanent Palestinian orthodoxy, baldly stated in the Hamas Charter that Israel should not exist.

Whichever it is The Australian will continue to publish news and opinions, regardless of who we offend.

Source: The Australian