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Ett tal av Netanyahu som är värt att läsas.


Roten till konflikten är arabernas/palestiniernas vägran att erkänna Israel som judarnas hemland.

PM Netanyahu's Remarks at the Israel Towards 2020 Conference at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies  

"... However, there is a second sacred cow in equal measure.  When people are asked what the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is – since if you want to provide a solution or fix a certain problem, first you must correctly diagnose the illness.  Well, when asked what the root of the conflict is, people usually have an answer at the ready: the occupation, the territories, the settlements and so on – it is all the same.  Israel "taking control of the territories", the area of Judea and Samaria after the Six Day War, the settlements – this is what sustains the conflict, this is what created the conflict for the most part.  And I ask, is it really?

In my opinion, if one must choose a process by which the conflict started in actual fact, I would set the date at 1921 on the day on which the Palestinian Arabs attacked the immigration hostel in Jaffa.
Many Jews were killed in this attack, including the well-known writer Y.H. Brenner.  This attack was directed against Jewish immigration.  My grandfather arrived in Jaffa, at that same hostel, the year before, as did many others.  Clearly this attack was not about territory or settlements; it was against Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel.  Later there were more attacks: In 1929, the ancient Jewish community in Hebron was brutally slaughtered.  It had existed there nearly uninterrupted for close to 4,000 years.  After that, there were attacks in '36, in '39 – what they called unrest.  These were repeated and methodical attacks against the Jewish community in Israel.  Later on there was the Partition Plan of 1947, wherein it was proposed that there be an Arab state – they didn't say Palestinian state, but rather Arab state – and a Jewish state.  The Jews agreed, the Arabs refused.  Because the matter was not at that time, nor is it today, the question of a Palestinian state, but rather was and remains, unfortunately, the Jewish state.  And even before 1967, for 19 years, they had us in a chokehold; there was a stranglehold around us with the sole goal of uprooting us, of extinguishing our lives.  What was that about?  There were no territories then either.  There was no occupation, unless Tel Aviv is occupied and Jaffa is occupied.  There were no settlements for 46 years, from 1921 to 1967, nearly half a century.  We were excoriated by the Arab public unrelated to settlements, unrelated to what is presented as the historic heart of the struggle.  I say these things because I can – well, so it ended there, but later everything changed.  Later on, events developed as they developed.  We withdrew from Gaza, every last centimeter.  We uprooted communities and the attacks against us continued – approximately 10,000 missiles were fired at us from Gazan territory, from territories from which we withdrew.  And when we ask those who launch the missiles and those who stand behind them: why do you fire at Jews?  They say: in order to free Palestine.  And what is Palestine?  Judea and Samaria?  No.  Of course, they are part of it, but they say: Beer Sheva and Ashkelon, Majdal and Acre and Jaffa.  Fine, those who say such things belong to Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but the more moderate elements in Judea and Samaria, the Palestinian Authority – it is true that they do not engage in terror and this is an important distinction.  They do not engage in terror, but when they are asked to say: Well, do you recognize?  Not in Judea and Samaria, not in the West Bank, but are you ready finally to recognize the Jewish state?  They answer: We are prepared to recognize the Israeli people; we are ready to recognize Israel.  I say, that is not the question I am asking: are you prepared to recognize the Jewish state, the nation state of the Jewish people?  And the answer so far has been no.  Why not?..."