Posted on 05/13/2003 5:35:49 AM PDT by SJackson
"The Oslo agreement was a nice harmless pet in comparison to the Roadmap," Uzi Landau, Minister for Strategic Affairs, said Tuesday in an interview with Maariv. He called on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to convey to President Bush that the roadmap is totally unacceptable "because it rewards terror and threatens the very existence of the state."
Landau stated that "the roadmap is many times more terrible than the Oslo agreement, because in its current form it encourages terror in a manner that the Oslo agreement, which cost us in the last decade some thousand victims, is in comparison a household pet."
He said that the map is "incompatible with Bush's intent to fight terror, and is more in the spirit of appeasement of the European Quartet. Our decision to accept the Roadmap will totally destroy the message of the war on terror. Instead of punishing the Palestinian Authority for not fulfilling any of the obligations that it undertook under Oslo, murdering more than a thousand Israelis within the last decade; instead of predicating any future progress on changing the entire leadership, including Arafat, it rewards the Palestinians with unprecedented achievements, and gives a prize to terror, like, for example, the establishment of a Palestinian state without negotiations, the return of Israel to the 'Auschwitz borders' of '67, bringing European forces to our region, and more."
Landau noted that the roadmap does not speak about ceasing the teaching of hatred of Israel in the Palestinian education system. "When there is no obligation on the Palestinians to stop teaching hatred of Israel, no peace is possible. Guys, we're wasting our time."
But Landau expressed optimism that progress along the lines of the Roadmap might be possible, provided some conditions ensuring the security of Israel are incorporated. "Without these conditions, Israel must not go near this roadmap, though it seems to me that the Americans did not understand us these past few months. The prime minister spoke of the need to demilitarize the state if it arises, prohibit it from signing defense pacts, and have Israel maintain control of its airspace. That is the minimum. Without these conditions, a Palestinian state will be an existential threat to Israel. But there is no mention of these conditions in the roadmap, just as there is no mention of a revocation of Palestinian right of return. And it mentions the Saudi initiative, which speaks of solving the Palestinian problem under the auspices of UN Security Council resolution 194, which spoke of the right of return."
Landau said that "We need to emphasize that this roadmap does not apply the vision Bush spoke of that Israel is interested in compromises but not in suicide."
So please forgive the old USA if we have our way, for once, on the roadmap.
Curious, see the 1948 UN Security Council resolution 194. Examine the issues of "return" and especially the non-starter of Jerusalem territory.
So Israel is getting more than enough room to breathe. It will survive the roadmap.
Then again, for some Israelis, any peace plan is automatically bad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.