Syria Today | Netanyahu speech met with anger

Netanyahu speech met with anger

Syria and Damascus-based Palestinian factions have accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sabotaging peace efforts after he delivered a key note foreign policy speech in which he said he would be willing to back the creation of a Palestinian state, but only if it was demilitarised and Palestinians drop their demand for a full right of return.

Netanyahu’s speech, delivered at the Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv on June 14, came less than two weeks after US President Barack Obama urged him to agree to a two-state plan in his June 4 Cairo address.

In the speech, Netanyahu called on the Palestinian Authority to begin peace negotiations without preconditions, saying he was prepared to meet with Arab leaders “any time, any place, in Damascus, in Riyadh, in Beirut and in Jerusalem as well”. He stressed, however, that any future Palestinian state must be unarmed and the problem of Palestinian refugees seeking return must be solved outside of Israel’s borders.

“If we have guarantees on demilitarisation and if the Palestinians recognise Israel as a state of the Jewish people, then we arrive at a solution based on a demilitarised Palestinian state alongside Israel,” Netanyahu said.

Hamas Deputy Leader Abu Moussa Marzouk denounced the speech in an interview with Syria Today, accusing Netanyahu of mouthing empty platitudes about a future Palestinian state.

“Netanyahu has been very clear when talking about Israeli policy – he used the kind of words that will satisfy his supporters so that he gains public support,” Marzouk said. “When he spoke about the Palestinian state he spoke with empty words because he said it should be an unarmed state, without sovereignty. He spoke confidently about the settlements and even said that Obama is wrong about the issue. Netanyahu’s policy was clear in his speech. Israel is now trying to impose solutions on the ground rather than through understanding.”

Meanwhile, five Damascus-based Palestinian factions – the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian People’s Party, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front – issued a joint statement on June 15 which said Netanyahu’s speech was “tantamount to a declaration of war on the national rights of Palestinians”.

“Netanyahu’s speech ignores the Palestinian people’s right to an independent state with full sovereignty, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes they fled in 1948, and declares his government’s continued policy to expand settlements in the West Bank under the mask of ‘natural growth’,” the statement said. “Netatanyahu’s policy is a sure-fire recipe for new threats to security, peace and stability.”

Reaction in the Syrian private and public media was just as critical. An editorial published in the state-run newspaper Tishreen on June 15, compared Netanyahu’s policy to that of former apartheid South Africa. “The Zionist government, according to Netanyahu’s speech, agrees to set up Palestinian cantons reminiscent of the Africans’ cantons in South Africa in the days of the racist regime,” the editorial said.

The editorial went on to address Netanyahu’s mention of a “demilitarised Palestinian state” saying “they [the Israeli government] speak of their right to use the Palestinian skies as if it is an open area with no people and where there will never be a state.”