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RI questions Israel’s ‘sincerity’ in endorsing Palestinian state
Ary Hermawan , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 06/15/2009 10:39 PM | World
Indonesia said Monday the major “peace” speech made by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he conditionally endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state, “lacked clear direction”, and questioned if the about-face was “sincere”.Reversing the stance he had held for decades before assuming office, Netanyahu said Sunday for the first-time Israel would endorse a Palestinian state, but on conditions the future Palestinian state did not have an army and recognized Israel as a Jewish state.
“The Palestinians have the right to fight against oppression by any means, including the use of weapons,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah said.
Indonesia, he said, also questioned the implications of Israel’s request the Palestinians recognized the Jewishness of Israel.
“Does it mean the Palestinian refugees will be denied their rights to return to their homeland and non-Jewish people will not be allowed to live in Israel?”
The Palestinian authorities slammed Netanyahu’s speech as “racist” and rejected his idea of an independent Palestinian state without an army. The US, the key player in the Middle East quartet, praised the speech, calling Israel’s backing for a Palestinian state a step “in right direction”. The EUgave it a “cautious welcome”.
Indonesia, a Dutch colony for decades before gaining independence in 1945, has consistently supported the Palestinians in their struggle against Israeli occupation. It demands a two-state solution for the conflict be based on the territorial map before the 1967 Middle East war, thus rejecting Netanyahu’s renewed insistence Jerusalem will be Israel’s undivided capital.
While hosting the UN meeting on Palestine last week, Indonesia called on the international community to push Israel to end its occupation of Palestine and punish the Jewish nation for its alleged war crimes against unarmed civilians.
Hamdan Basyar, a lecturer at the University of Indonesia’s Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, doubted Israel’s peace rhetoric, saying, “They agree to endorse a Palestinian state, but they also want to have it under their control”.
The speech, he argued, was nothing but a compromise Netanyahu had to make as he was now facing two-way pressure: one from the hardliners inside his right-leaning coalition government and the other from the United States, once Israel’s strongest backer before US President Barack Obama took office and bid to mend the US image after eight years of George Bush’s reckless foreign policy.
Obama has welcomed the speech, saying he is committed to a two-state solution and would work with all parties to see the Israeli and Palestinian authorities fulfill their obligations and head toward regional peace.
Hamdan said Obama should not be easily contented by Netanyahu’s speech, which overlooked the main issues, such as the freezing of settlement expansion in the West Bank, which have undermined peace process and creation of a Palestinian state.
“Obama must not let Israel go forward with their agenda. A Palestinian state without a military power to defend itself is useless.”
A senior politician from the Muslim-based National Mandate Party (PAN), Abdillah Toha, slammed Netanyahu’s speech, saying “it is not a speech of peace”.
The Israeli leader, he said, had instead “slammed the door to peace” by rejecting the conditions deemed essential to achieving a two-state solution.
“The speech’s substance is basically against Obama’s two-state solution.”
The US is seen as the only political power capable of forcing Israel to press the Middle East peace process forward.
“But then Obama has to face challenges in his own country on the issue. We know how strong the Jewish lobby in the US is,” Abdillah said.
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Iwan2 (not verified) — Tue, 06/16/2009 - 12:34pm
ironic comments considering isreal is not even recognised as a country by indonesia. Not much political pressure coming from this government on that regard therefore no point in the isrealis bothering to listen.
As for hamas who has just introduced cruxifiction as a punishment we must all wonder were it will end.
To save money the arab countries can guarantee isreals right to exist and i am sure the US will guarantee palestines right to exist. Fair deal
Karl (not verified) — Tue, 06/16/2009 - 6:58am
Please note the following quotes from Arab leaders:
"There is no such country as Palestine. 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. 'Palestine' is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it".
- Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, Syrian Arab leader to British Peel Commission, 1937 -
"There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not".
- Professor Philip Hitti, Arab historian, 1946 -
"It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but Southern Syria".
- Representative of Saudi Arabia at the United Nations, 1956 -
Concerning the Holy Land, the chairman of the Syrian Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in February 1919 stated:
"The only Arab domination since the Conquest in A. D. 635 hardly lasted, as such, 22 years".
The preceding declarations by Arab politicians have been done before 1967, as they had not the slightest knowledge of the existence of any Palestinian people. How and when did they change their mind and decided that such people existed? When the State of Israel was reborn in A. D. 1948, the "Palestinians" did not exist yet, the Arabs had still not discovered that "ancient" people. They were too busy with the purpose of annihilating the new Sovereign State and did not intend to create any Palestinian entity, but only to distribute the land among the already existing Arab states. They were defeated. They attempted again to destroy Israel in 1967, and were humiliated in only six days, in which they lost the lands that they had usurped in 1948. In those 19 years of Arab occupation of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, neither Jordan nor Egypt suggested to create a "Palestinian" state, since the still non-existing Palestinians would have never claimed their alleged right to have their own state... Paradoxically, during the British Mandate, it was not any Arab group but the Jews that were known as "Palestinians"!
What other Arabs declared after the Six-Day War:
"There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity... yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel".
- Zuhair Muhsin, military commander of the PLO and member of the PLO Executive Council -
"You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria. You are an integral part of the Syrian people, Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people".
- Syrian president Hafez Assad to the PLO leader Yassir Arafat -
"As I lived in Palestine, everyone I knew could trace their heritage back to the original country their great grandparents came from. Everyone knew their origin was not from the Canaanites, but ironically, this is the kind of stuff our education in the Middle East included. The fact is that today's Palestinians are immigrants from the surrounding nations! I grew up well knowing the history and origins of today's Palestinians as being from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Christians from Greece, Muslim Sherkas from Russia, Muslims from Bosnia, and the Jordanians next door. My grandfather, who was a dignitary in Bethlehem, almost lost his life by Abdul Qader Al-Husseni (the leader of the Palestinian revolution) after being accused of selling land to Jews. He used to tell us that his village Beit Sahur (The Shepherds Fields) in Bethlehem County was empty before his father settled in the area with six other families. The town has now grown to 30,000 inhabitants".
- Walid Shoebat, an "ex-Palestinian" Arab -
So let ALL of the Arabs unite into ONE country and give Israel her ancestral lands back. Then we'll have a chance for peace!