Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke is correct that, as former Israeli PM Golda Meir said, there can be no peace for Israel without an honourable settlement of the aspirations of the Palestinian people. However, there can also only be peace if both parties negotiate that honourable settlement in good faith, and are prepared to make the painful compromises required.
For Israel, as shown by past offers, these compromises involve giving up the equivalent of the whole of the West Bank and Gaza, giving up some control of its capital Jerusalem and taking some risks with its security. For the Palestinians, these involve genuinely accepting Israel’s right to exist, accepting that a peace agreement will mean the end of all claims against Israel and, perhaps most importantly, accepting that seeking to overrun Israel by demanding a “right of return” for five million descendants of refugees is not compatible with a two state peace.
Israel offered the requisite concessions in 2000, 2001 and 2008, but the Palestinian leadership refused, without even offering counter-proposals. In 2009, at President Obama’s urging, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu instituted an unprecedented 10-month freeze on building in settlements, to encourage peace talks, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused to talk. In 2014, according to US mediator Martin Indyk, Netanyahu was “sweating bullets” for an agreement but Abbas just walked away. Since then, Netanyahu has repeatedly offered to negotiate without preconditions, but Abbas has refused. Instead of good faith negotiations, the Palestinian Authority has pursued a path of vicious anti-Israel incitement, endorsement of terrorism and delegitimisation of Israel.
Read the full article by Mark Leibler in the Australian Financial Review.