At the weekly Cabinet meeting today (Sunday), 21.6.09:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the diplomatic speech that he
gave at Bar-Ilan University last week:
"The importance of the speech was in defining Israel's national consensus on
achieving a peace agreement. The items that I presented are not conditions
for the start of negotiations. We do not condition the start of
negotiations on any conditions; on the contrary, we insist that there be no
pre-conditions either by our side or by the other side. But I certainly
came to express fundamental positions that are vital for Israel's future,
for the existence of a genuine peace with its neighbors and for the
maintenance of its security, since there is no peace without security.
The two main points that I sought to emphasize were: First of all, that we
are talking about two states for two peoples and one of these is the Jewish
People, and the Jewish People are entitled to a national state of their own.
Of course, there are non-Jews in it and they enjoy full civil rights but the
state is a state of the Jewish people, with the symbols, language and
holidays of the Jewish people, and with the ability of every Jew to
immigrate here and become a citizen, what is incorrect regarding the
so-called 'right of return.' This will not be implemented in the State of
Israel.
It was important to me to emphasize that the Palestinian side must recognize
Israel as the national state of the Jewish People just as we are being asked
to recognize the Palestinian state as the national state of the Palestinian
people. Moreover, a peace agreement must put an end to their claims in this
regard and to all claims, and put an end to the conflict.
I think that according to these remarks which were made, certainly by
previous prime ministers, I think that we are serious in our desire to
achieve a peace agreement. We want to be serious in this demand, which we
are making on the other side, as one of the two main components of the
peace.
The second issue, of course, is demilitarization because security will not
be achieved except by demilitarization and demilitarization does not detract
from the Palestinian self-determination. I do not understand why, for the
purpose of Palestinian self-determination, they need Kassams and GRAD
missiles. I can understand that they need a strong police force and
security services; we are encouraging this but they do not need tanks,
artillery or missiles. But we, on the basis of our experience and what has
happened in the places we evacuated, are entitled - more than any other
country in the world - to demand that the Palestinian state be a
demilitarized state.
Therefore, on these principles - recognition of Israel as the national state
of the Jewish People and an end to claims, and the clear demand that the
international community guarantee effective demilitarization measures - I
think that we have thereby covered the areas of a very broad consensus among
the Israeli public. They could have been concealed; they could have been
unclear. I think that what was done sharpened the foundations of the
national consensus that is necessary to achieve peace.
I insisted on these matters in my talks with foreign leaders. We will
discuss them today and I will continue to raise them in my talks in Europe."
