Posted on 06/12/2006 5:44:12 PM PDT by familyop
Tony Blair, UK prime minister, on Monday urged Israelis and Palestinians to pursue a negotiated settlement of their conflict, but did not endorse a unilateral Israeli solution in the event of a stalemate.
Speaking in Downing Street after talks with Ehud Olmert, Israel’s new prime minister, Mr Blair promised to give “every support and every impetus we can from the international community” to ensure that talks could begin.
Mr Olmert is on the first leg of a European tour to win support for his proposals to withdraw from large parts of the West Bank and define Israel’s borders unilaterally if talks with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, fail to produce a deal.
Mr Blair said the Palestinians had to recognise Israel’s right to exist and renounce violence and both sides had to adhere to the international community’s “road map” for talks. Israel also needed to address the “main issue” of how to create a viable Palestinian state. For in-depth coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict click here
Only a negotiated settlement was likely to last, Mr Blair said. But he acknowledged that there had to be progress towards some form of resolution to prevent the Middle East from slipping back into “chaos”, and hinted that that could require a unilateral redrawing of the borders.
“This thing either moves forward by way of agreement or other ways of moving it forward have to be found,” he said.
The Israeli leader reiterated his willingness to work towards a negotiated solution, which he said was based on “a generous compromise” by Israel. He would “go a long way” to convincing the Palestinians that it was worthwhle entering talks, under conditions set out in the “international road map”.
“We are not impatient, therefore we are willing to give it some time,” Mr Olmert said, revealing that he would be meeting Mr Abbas within the next few weeks.
But he also re-stated his readiness to go it alone in re-drawing Israel’s map, adding that only a few years ago an Israeli offer to vacate 90 per cent of the West Bank would have been considered a “miracle”.
“In spite of our obvious efforts, we may not be able to achieve our primary goal to negotiate with the Palestinians on the principles of the road map. We will have to move forward...to separate from the Palestinians, pull out from areas of the West Bank to realign Israelis to other parts of Israel to leave very large contiguous territories for a state to be formed by the Palestinians,” he said.
Mr Blair agreed that negotiations could not start until the Palestinians renounced violence and accepted Israel’s right to exist.
However, he declined to endorse Mr Olmert’s view – expressed last week in an interview with the Financial Times – that a proposed referendum on Palestinian peace proposals was “meaningless”.
Mr Olmert dismissed the referendum on proposals that implicitly recognise Israel as an internal Palestinian “game between one faction and another”.
Mr Blair said that “anything that helps move the peace process forward is valuable”.
The Israeli prime minister said his country could not allow Iran to “cross the nuclear threshold”, warning that equipped with atomic weapons it would pose a “serious danger to the entire world”.
Ping.
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Mr Blair said that “anything that helps move the peace process forward is valuable”.
Excellent. Killing terrorists is a good thing.
Wow! Nobody ever thought of that before!
A "negotiated settlement", huh?
Sort of like a '
"peace agreement".
I'm surprised this idea hadn't come up before.
Brilliant!
Here's my solution.
If there are too many Palestinians for the land left over when the Israelis build their wall, up to 250,000 Palestinians (chosen by lottery) will be given green cards for the United States, PROVIDED that no one who was a terrorist or bore arms at all during the war, or whose close family member was a terrorist or bore arms, will be given a green card, and FURTHER PROVIDED that the family of a homicide bomber will be disqualified for 2 generations backwards and forwards.
Hey Tony, may I suggest Aricept. You're losing your memory Tony.
Remember Tony, they were supposed to have done just that in 1988 in order to be recognized by the US.
Again in the OSLO accords.
Again for the Wye River accords.
They do it all the time, Tony. And Israel gives something tangible for these lies.
They're lying s**cbags Tony? What's your excuse for repeating this garbage?
to prevent the Middle East from slipping back into “chaos”
WOW, Tony. We wouldn't want the Mideast slipping in Chaos.
Want to know a little secret Tony?
Before the recognition of the PLO in 1988, before OSLO, before the Wye accords, the Mideast had much less chaos then today.
It seems Tony that the more a**holes like you interfere, and spread for the Arabs, the more chaos results.
I should have posted a link to some history with the post above, for those who haven't been educated (not referring to you here, but most others are unaware of the history regarding Britain and Israel).
British Mandate for Palestine (WW I to 1948)
http://palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate.php
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