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Adapted from the Israeli prime minister’s remarks after his meet ing yesterday with President Obama.
ISRAEL wants peace. I want peace. What we all want is a peace that will be genuine, that will hold, that will endure. A peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality; the only peace that will endure is one that is based on reality, on unshakable facts. For there to be peace, the Palestinians will have to accept some realities.
The first is that, while Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines — because these lines are indefensible; because they don’t take into account demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years.
Remember that before 1967 Israel was all of nine miles wide, half the width of the Washington Beltway. And these were not the boundaries of peace: They were the boundaries of repeated wars — because attacking Israel was so attractive.
So we can’t go back to those indefensible lines, and we’re going to have to have a long-term military presence along the Jordan.
The second reality is that Israel cannot negotiate with a Palestinian government that is backed by Hamas. Hamas, as President Obama said, is a terrorist organization committed to Israel’s destruction. It’s fired thousands of rockets on our cities, on our children. It’s recently fired an anti-tank rocket at a yellow school bus, killing a 16-year-old boy. And Hamas has just attacked you, Mr. President, and the United States, for ridding the world of Osama bin Laden.
So Israel obviously cannot be asked to negotiate with a government that is backed by the Palestinian version of al Qaeda.
I think President Mahmoud Abbas has a simple choice — keep his pact with Hamas or make peace with Israel. I hope he makes the right choice, of choosing peace with Israel.
The third reality is that the Palestinian refugee problem will have to be resolved in the context of a Palestinian state — but certainly not in the borders of Israel.
The Arab attack in 1948 on Israel resulted in two refugee problems — a Palestinian refugee problem and Jewish refugees, roughly the same number. Tiny Israel absorbed the Jewish refugees but the vast Arab world refused to absorb the Palestinian refugees. Now, 63 years later, the Palestinians say to Israel, Ac cept the grandchildren, and really the great grandchildren, of these refugees. Thereby wiping out Israel’s future as a Jewish state.
It’s not going to happen. Everybody knows it’s not going to happen, and I think it’s time to tell the Palestinians forthrightly it’s not going to happen.
The Palestinian refugee problem has to be resolved. It can be resolved. And it will be resolved if the Palestinians choose to do so in a Palestinian state. But it’s not going to be resolved within the Jewish state.
President Obama and I may have differences here and there, but I think there’s an overall direction that we wish to work together to pursue a real, genuine peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors, a peace that is defensible.
Mr. President, you are the leader of a great people, the American people. I’m the leader of a much smaller people — it’s a great people, too.
It’s the ancient nation of Israel, and, you know, we’ve been around for almost 4,000 years. We’ve experienced struggle and suffering like no other people. We’ve gone through expulsions and pogroms and massacres and the murder of millions, but I can say that even at the nadir of the valley of death, we never lost hope and we never lost our aim of re-establishing a sovereign state in our ancient homeland, the land of Israel.
And now it falls on my shoulders as the prime minister of Israel at a time of extraordinary instability and uncertainty in the Middle East to work with you to fashion a peace that will ensure Israel’s security and will not jeopardize its survival. I take this responsibility with pride but with great humility — because we don’t have a lot of margin for error, and history will not give the Jewish people another chance.
So in the coming days and weeks and months, I intend to work with you to seek a peace that will address our security concerns, seek a genuine recognition that we wish from our Palestinian neighbors and give a better future for Israel and for the entire region. And I thank you for the opportunity to exchange our views and to work together for this common end.