(IsraelNN.com) President Shimon Peres says the “land for peace” formula on which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is working has not worked for Israel.
Speaking on Tuesday to some 150 foreign reporters at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, Peres poured coldish water on the plans to give up 95% of Judea and Samaria for an Arab state. It is known that Prime Minister Olmert is working on just such a plan, in anticipation of the upcoming US-sponsored international summit this November.
The presidential speech was broadcast around the world, including on Al-Jazeera.
Summing up the situation for those who might not have known, Peres said, “The problems are peace, land, and security… In similar cases, like in Gaza and Lebanon, Israel gave up land – but received neither peace nor security.”
Peres continued a familiar refrain of his by saying that modern war is less about borders than about money: “Wars today are not carried out with tanks or ships, but rather with rockets and weapons of mass destruction. War is more ballistic than geographic.”
Expanding on the same theme, Peres said, “The value of borders, lands, and distances has dropped; the importance today is more economic.”
Peres said that he told the Special European Union envoy to the Middle East, ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, that the EU should “stop supporting the Palestinians financially; they have received a billion dollars a year that were used for corruption and caused the toppling of the Fatah in Gaza. Instead, the money should be used to support the establishment of industrial areas for employment in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.”
Peres’ hands are dripping with the blood of innocent Israelis.
Do not forget who, along with ‘lap dog’ Yossi Beilin violated Israeli law and began to negotiate with PLO in the early 90’s. Remember the Madrid Conference? Remember Oslo?
While it is easy to welcome an “apparent shift” in President Peres’ view, DO NOT TRUST THIS MAN!.
Why would he do an about face re: “land for peace.”
Peres is all about appeasement, reconciliation……..and suicide and destruction of the Jewish nation in Israel.
Remember also that Peres considers himself an ‘enlightened’ Israeli – a member of the global community – and not a real JEW!
Peres is the epitome of an anti-Israeli (pseudo) Jew hating Jew.
This human piece of dung is the most dangerous man in Israel.
He has caused more damage than any other living Israeli politician – I don’t consider Sharon to be truly alive.
Any and all Israeli elites and politicans who seek to negotiate with evil (PA,Hamas, Fatah, etc.) need to be refuted, rejected and opposed vigorously.
If it were possible, they should all be tried for treason and sedition.
These rotten scum (Olmert, Peres, Livni, Barak, Ramon, Beilin, Burg, etc.) should be imprisoned, exiled or worse.
Israel needs to be sovereign from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
Gaza must be invaded and the Philadelphi road must be secured. Other portions of Gaza may need to be re-conquered as well in order to optimize Israeli security concerns.
Israel must realize that she is in an existential war with an implacable, savage enemy bent upon her destruction.
That enemy is the Muslim nation and Islam. The Palestinians represent the fodder for the Muslim nation and Islam.
That notwithstanding, Israel must thoroughly vanquish the Palestinians (all factions) and create new facts on the ground.
Jeff (sanderzack@yahoo.com)
What happened to Shimon Peres of the “New Middle East” mirage? Although, along with the others, I welcome the apparent change in Peres’ perceptions, he still seems to be talking from both sides of his mouth. While he emphacizes that “land for peace” has been a disaster for Israel, he still clings to the notion that size of territory and borders are of no importance.
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
We Jews have lived without land for so many centuries that we think it’s normal. Israel has to get serious about ownership of all the land west of the Jordan River. Some Arabs will stay and some will leave. There will never be peace bought with land. It doesn’t take a genious to figure this out and we shouldn’t be so amazed that it has occured to the president of Israel.
Per and Bill are right.
Peres is no 1 problem for Israel in whatever guise he appears.
He is part of that Israeli ruling clique who hate the Israeli Judaic movement of the settlers. He has to be exposed thoroughly as Per is starting to do above.
This Labour Party in Israel is no more “socialist” than is the British Labour Party or Zapatero´s PSOE.
What this represents is how totally isolated is Olmert over this Palestinian State issue.
You remove the US Government and the EU support for Olmert and he is totally exposed. Could not last very long in that situation. it is clearly Rice who props up Olmert.
Nobody has yet remarked on it, but a key issue is how Olmert is able to work with the IDF in destroying the Syrian N Korean nuclear bomb, VERY POSITIVE, and at the same time work at setting up a Palestinian Islamist state.
It seems a contradiction.
But the point is that all Israelis are endangered by Iran and the new developments of nucler technology.
These people even Olmert and Peres must be supported in whatever steps they take but the programmes must not be mixed up.
That is why it is now even more urgent to have a United Front where all political parties and groups will state exactly where they stand. The Israeli political education must proceed urgently.
Peres does not seem to know that the “Land for Peace” mechanism has worked excellently for Islamic imperialism since the days of kaliph Omar. Someone should send him a copy of Bat Yeor’s books.
He also seems to be unaware that the “establishment of industrial areas for employment” looks very much like what the Holocaust infrastructure was based upon. What Peres seems to recommend is an Israel with Auschwitz borders surrounded by jihad industry. His call for industrial investments in Gaza has already been answered by a growing Kassam industry funded by the EU. It only remains to have it introduced on the stock market.
Sounded odd to me too. No one wants to be associated with failure.
Do I detect in Shimon Peres’ comments a slight shift of direction in his thinking?