Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Tuesday he did not believe a stable peace agreement could be reached with the Palestinians in his lifetime – one of the bleakest assessments from a top-level cabinet member since talks collapsed last year.
Ya’alon, one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest allies, accused the Palestinians of having “slammed the door” on efforts to keep discussions going, and said they had rejected peace-for-land deals for at least 15 years.
Peace negotiations broke off in April 2014, with disputes raging over Israeli settlement building in occupied land Palestinians seek for a state and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s unity deal with Hamas Islamists who rule Gaza and do not recognize Israel’s right to exist.
“As for the possibility of reaching an agreement … there is someone who says he doesn’t see one during his term,” Ya’alon said, referring to remarks U.S. President Barack Obama made in an Israeli television interview last week.
“I don’t see a stable agreement during my lifetime, and I intend to live a bit longer,” Yaalon told the Herzliya Conference, held annually near Tel Aviv.
In his television interview, Obama said Netanyahu’s position “has so many caveats, so many conditions that it is not realistic to think that those conditions would be met at any time in the near future”.
Ya’alon: Delegitimization main weapon against Israel
Ya’alon also told the conference that while conventional weapons were still a threat to Israel, delegitimization of the Jewish state is the most popular means being used against it by its adversaries today.
@ Bear Klein:
The French are acting at Obama’s behest, and Obama has enormous power over Israel.
@ Bear Klein:
I believe they are being put up to pursuing this disgrace by Obama, who does have enormous power over Israel. Only the Congressional Republicans can stop him, and when have they ever stopped him? Or even tried.
I am glad that you are so confident, but I am worried about the next eighteen months.
@ Ted Belman: Ted, the TSS is not viable if it was analyzed from many realistic perspectives. It is a fiction to try and solve the conflict which certainly currently is not solvable by any formula short of deporting or moving large amounts of Palestinians. This is also not currently more than some theoretical solution.
Short of a vicious protracted war with the Palestinians it is highly highly unlikely that large amounts of Palestinians will move elsewhere.
I wish they would but it is not currently realistic.
@ babushka: The EU will not succeed in my opinion. They are a strong irritant but have less and less power over Israel. Israel is steering more of its economic development towards Asia. The EU is actually also doing more business with Israel in-spite of the BDS and labeling noise.
Israel does even more business with Turkey. Since the EU is not sending soldiers to fight us, they can be a pain in the ass and help pass resolutions and threaten punitive things on business but in the end they will NOT succeed.
Bear Klein Said:
Eldad reported on these threats and said it was putting a gun to his head. Maybe they also threatened him if he approved the Levy Report. It is conceivable that the threats were so specific and draconian as to prevent Bibi from building in the territories and stop him from accepting the Levy Report and to stop him from demolishing Arab homes and especially the homes being built with EU money in area C.
@ Bear Klein:
The Euros are preparing their push to make Israel defenseless. Do you believe the EU will stop its assault on Israel without achieving that goal? Is Netanyahu sufficiently strong to withstand what will be intense pressure? I doubt it. An EU-Obama jihad against Israel is coming, and Bibi has buckled under challenges that are far less daunting.
@ babushka:
Israel will keep it demilitarized and no one else. He is not for changing the status quo. They the PA currently have a limited autonomy in Areas A/B. This is status quo and is nothing new.
And who will enforce the demilitarization? The French? After they finish pushing their sanctions against Israel (which Netanyahu should publicly label “The Gestapo Initiative”), maybe the worthless French will enforce demilitarization because you can be sure that no one else will. Once the Palis have Judea and Samaria, the War Of Annihilation against Israel enters its final accelerated phase.
@ Ted Belman: Ted, Bibi has not closed the door on a TSS because of pressure from Obama & the EU. This type of pressure only the head of the government can actually feel when he is responsible for the welfare of the country and maintaining its strategic alliances.
A very very right wing former Knesset member critic of Bibi personally told me that Obama early in his first administration made some extreme threats against Israel to Bibi if he abandoned the TSS. The result was the speech at Bar Illan.
He does not believe it is going to happen nor want it to happen because it is not real in the context of both the Palestinians and the fires burning around Israel with ISIS and the ongoing wars. He has not varied from his very reasonable demands which Obama calls caveats (Jewish State recognition, security meeting Israels demands, maintaining the IDF in the Jordan Valley, keeping a unified Jewish Jerusalem, maintaining the settlement blocks and most Jewish towns in Y/S, renunciation of the right of return by the Pals, end of conflict agreement).
Bibi is for a demilitarized Palestinian autonomy in Areas A/B and maintaining the status quo because he does want to absorb the Palestinians living in Y/S.
@ Yidvocate:
Obama is a vindictive turd:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/the-time-when-hillarys-pet-wall-street-donor-threw-a-tantrum-at-the-israeli-ambassador-over-the-un/#.VXhxXJ7WNuQ.twitter
@ babushka:
Absolutely correct. Muzloids will forever be implacable enemies of the Jews till Mashiach comes. Till then peace with the Arab enemy is exactly as Babushka states it.
Demilitarization and recognition of Israel as the Jewish state – so many caveats and conditions, my my!
The above dramatizes why bho is so irked by BB.
There is a false assumption that the word “peace” has a universal definition. To the Jews, peace means harmonious coexistence featuring an absence of conflict. To the Muslims, peace means no more Jews. To American liberals, peace is what they did for Cambodia and Rhodesia.
My definition of peace is a state of being in which Gentiles are afraid to aggress violently against Jews. By that standard, the status quo in the Middle East comes pretty close to achieving peace, but true peace will only be attained when Israel shows zero tolerance towards Muslim violence. When Hamas is afraid to launch any more rockets and Fatah is afraid to commit any more terrorism, there will be meaningful peace and it will be achieved the old fashioned way – through the physical intimidation of the bad guys.
@ rsklaroff:Agreed. Bibi said as much when he said “not in this government” or something to that effect. That doesn’t mean that he is committed to pursuing a different outcome and in fact is preserving the situation on the ground to make the TSS viable.
Ya’alon channels BB, so the candor ascribed to the former reflects the posture of the latter…who doesn’t disassemble.
Between Netanyahu’s dissembling and Yaalon’s blunt candor, no one is talking about peace.
It will happen when pigs can fly.