He ends his speech with :
I call upon Arab leaders and Palestinian leaders : Let’s go in the path of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein. Let’s go in the path of Prophet Isaiah, who spoke thousands of years ago, they shall beat their swords into plowshares and know war no more. Let us know war no more. Let us know peace.
Even more surprising, he (kinda )proved his good faith by some measures(, taken from here) :
So, why did the palestinians refused since they clearly showed their good will(, at least for the palestinian authority,) in the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s ? Apparently it’s only about a mutual recognition with the condition of an understandable demilitarization on their part(, which they already partially agreed on previously) ? If only :
(source)
So the reason for the refusal was that they would have lost much more territory than compared to the previous agreements with the 1967 borders, including Jerusalem, and an unspecified number of settlements.
Furthermore, while they agreed on a partial demilitarization in the past(, no army and heavy weapons, but a security force), this went further with no aerial space, no border control, … Even if it wasn’t set in stone, since it wasn’t even an official plan like previously, it went likely much further than the previous criteria of demilitarization.
Finally, it’s not simply about recognizing Israel, but recognizing it as a jewish state would imply giving up on the palestinian’s “right of return”, and may have consequences as well for the arabs currently living in Israel.
I could also add since it’s written in a lot of places that it wasn’t seen as a serious proposal by the palestinians, more like a rhetorical gesture towards B.Obama, while hoping in reality that he’d be able to give more lands to Israel.
I found that interesting enough to share.
If i’m only seeing that as “demilitarization in exchange of a two-states solution”, as it’s often being presented by pro-israelis, then palestinians should accept it, even if they must receive(, from the west i.m.o.,) a compensation for their territorial loss.
(This post came after some questions i asked myself in this reddit comment, if you ever thought i was anti-Hamas(, edit : censored of course). At the same time, many arab countries opposed the Oslo accords in the 90s, most were “coincidentally” invaded by the west b.t.w.)
And yes, they’re starving, i know, sorry if i’m out of topic, just that it would only be a temporary situation if Israel stopped its current “genocide”(, a word so much abused by the west against its adversaries that i dislike using it, recently against Lybia, ISIS, Russia, Syria, China, and Ethiopia, Sudan, Myanmar, …, everytime that there’s a conflict not waged by the west).