Following in Rabin's Footsteps Toward Peace

November 4th, 2009 marks fourteen years since the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. A picture of the man who worked so hard to make peace -- and died for that effort -- sits in my office as a constant reminder of the objectives pursued by this great man and by my nation.

Each of the five Israeli Prime Ministers in the last fourteen years has worked to achieve Rabin's objective: peace between Israel and its neighbors and security for Israel. Each of these Prime Ministers has taken bold steps to create an environment where a peace agreement could be concluded. This is true regardless of whether the press classifies them as hawks or doves. All have and are committed to the complementary goals that motivated Rabin, peace and security for all who live in the area, Arab and Jew alike.

It's important to review some of the actions taken by Israel in the pursuit of these objectives over the last fourteen years.

• In 1997, then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiated solutions with Palestinians over such contentious issues as Hebron and again in 1998 with the Wye River Memorandum.
• Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with Yasser Arafat in Camp David in 2000, and at Tabla, in order to finalize a peace agreement. With a resolution, negotiated with the help of President Clinton, of the problem at hand, the final settlement was rejected by the Palestinians.
• Prime Minister Ariel Sharon removed all Israeli settlements and citizens from the Gaza Strip. This was met not by peace but by constant rocket and mortar fire at Israeli civilians living in communities near Gaza. In addition, an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was kidnapped from his homeland and whisked across border into Palestinian-controlled areas.
• Despite these hostile actions, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians a peace agreement that would have resulted in a Palestinian state with 100% of Gaza, 98% of the West Bank (with land exchanges to compensate for the remaining 2%), and a capital city in Arab East Jerusalem.

Since 1947, Israeli leader after Israeli leader has supported the United Nations resolution calling for a Palestinian state living side-by-side with the Jewish nation state now called Israel.

As recently as June 14th, 2009 Prime Minister Netanyahu declared at his speech at Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies: "I appeal tonight to the leaders of the Arab countries and say, Let us meet. Let us talk about peace. Let us make peace. I am willing to meet at any time, at any place, in Damascus, in Riyadh, in Beirut, and in Jerusalem as well."

This is only the latest offer from Israel to sit down at the negotiating table with no preconditions; to talk about the issues and to finally arrive at a solution that achieves the goals of the United Nations and of both peoples: two independent states -- a Palestinian state and a Jewish state -- living side-by-side in security and economic prosperity.

The reason for this failure does not fall on Israel, which is willing to forgo the fruits of previous wars in order to prevent future ones in the name of peace. Israel is once again prepared to uproot settlements and displace Israeli citizens in order to make peace. We have offered a complete withdrawal in exchange for peace and twice -- in the years 2000 and again in 2009 -- we were refused. Instead, we received rockets and missiles hitting our cities, towns, and children. The Israeli settlements are not the impediments to peace. The only real impediment to peace is the unwillingness of the Palestinian leadership to conclude an agreement that provides peace and security for the people of the region.

Peace is accomplished when both sides realize that they need not live in a constant state of war, that the legitimate goals of peace and security for all parties can be best achieved through a peaceful resolution of differences. Peace in the Mideast can be a reality. It's one that the late-Prime Minister Rabin sacrificed his life to achieve, and toward which every single Israeli Prime Minister thereafter has worked.

 

Comments

[SonnyBono]

Note to Mr. Asaf Shariv - The sunsets on your home planet - are they as colorful as those on Earth?

You neglected to mention other peaceful measures taken by Mr. Sharon - such as the massacre of Palestinians in the camps in Lebanon by the Christian militias while the Israeli army looked on - the scope of the bloodletting upset even the sitting Israeli government. Let us not forget Sharon's stroll on the Temple Mount with 900 Israeli police in tow - designed to enrage the Palestinians - worked, too but then there was an election pending so what's a little Palestinian blood shed. The withdrawal from Gaza was just window dressing - its too small and has no water whereas the West Bank has a lot more land and there are all those water rights in the Jordan valley to be robbed from the Palestinians and Arabs.

[fedupwithpolitics]

When you "left" Gaza, why did you continue to control its air space and borders? Why did you impose, and continue, a siege against the 1.4 million people of Gaza? Why do you continue to deny Palestinians in Gaza food, water, and medicine? Please do not treat us as though we have not read a newspaper or heard about your pre-emptive bombing of Lebanon and Gaza. Those rockets? They were in response to your siege of Gaza and to the illegal and inhuman occupation. The bottom line is this: you have stolen Palestinian land for decades. It's no great compromise when you offer to give back "some" of it. Israel will never have legitimate borders until it settles this conflict fairly--not with your "facts on the ground."

[bermanator]

Gaza shares a border with Egypt. Where is your outrage for them?

[ray01]

Egypt is not imposing a Naval blockade on Gaza nor is it delivering disproportionate
military responses under the guise of self-defense.

[MosheDayanHero]

Yeah, well too bad Palestinains could not learn to emulate Rabin's sincere desire for peace. Isn't it?

[SonnyBono]

You fail to mention that Rabin's desire for peace got him killed by an Israeli.

[Lon]

This starts out fine and then turns it to nonsense. It would not be difficult to make the list showing that each of those prime ministers acted actively to prevent a two state solution by pointing to settlement expansion, military attacks, economic blockades, etc.

It is true that Barak offered what is now being called a final settlement to the Palestinians. It is also true that if anyone suggested that Jews should live under the conditions the Palestinians would have had under that "final settlement" they would correctly be blasted as anti-semites.

This is not to say that there have not been positive moves by the Israelis. But to pretend that the Netanyahu government was positive in its actions simply makes the claim of positive actions vacuous. Barak deserves credit for his proposal over Jerusalem. But pretending he made a final settlement offer diminishes what he actually did.

Unfortunately this kind of one-sided view of the history of the region is an impediment to peace. As long as Israel is prepared to make peace only on terms which Jews would never accept were they on the other side, then there is no serious push for peace.

[Tzippi]

All too often this type of post appears which generally disputes the argument layed out but does not provide any facts at all. You state that the way the offers made by Israel is incorrectly represented but you do not offer any details as to where you believe the errors are. You just dismiss it. As we have seen since the withdrawal from Southern Lebanon and Gaza, Israel can anticipate violence from whatever state might be established in the territory that was previously held by Jordan. You don't give any convincing arguments as to why Israel should take that risk.

[Lon]

I am not sure what comment you are replying to since my comment mentions a couple of the problems with the way things were represented. Did you miss the line about "settlement expansion, military attacks, economic blockades, etc." or were you someone unaware that such things have gone on during the period Shariv is describing?

The Barak proposal would have left Israel in control of all borders into the West Bank, basically the current situation with Gaza. Can you imagine anyone suggesting a deal in which arabs controlled the flow of all goods into Israel and it was called a peace deal? The idea is laughable. I didn't think that I needed to explain that when one country controls the flow of goods into another that that is not actually a peace deal.

Imagine that human beings are being asked to live under such conditions and call it peace. Wouldn't that be a laughable situation? I think it is just as laughable when Palestinians are.

[Lon]

During the period that Shariv is talking about Israeli settlements expanded. This was easier because the Palestinians actually did a pretty effective job of keeping the peace making it a lot safer for Israel to expand into Palestinian land. An article which noted that Palestinians were keeping the peace while Israel was expanding settlements would be as accurate as the above account. And it would produce a superficial case that Palestinians wanted peace while Israel was against it. And it would be just as useless.

It's true that when you maintain a 40 year occupation you can expect violence from the people you are occupying. That isn't news. When Sharon pulled out of Gaza he made a point of making clear that it wasn't part of a peace deal because at the time he was trying to humiliate Abbas. It 's not surprising that the Palestinians took this as a sign that violence was the only thing that Sharon would respond to.

Israel should take the risk of working towards an actual peace deal because the alternative is turning into South Africa which would eventually mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Is that a good enough reason? They should also risk peace because keeping more than a million people in a state of malnutrition because it's the only way they can see to maintain your 40 year old occupation is immoral and undercuts the justification for Israel's existence, another reason.

I hope these added details help.