Pick an “ism”

To understand my reaction to this speech it is necessary to know that at the beginning of his speech Netanyahu made it perfectly clear that his comments were underpinned by the Zionist belief of the Jewish homeland: Eretz Israel. We know this to mean from the rivers to the sea, this includes the Occupied Territories.

With that in mind then, we listen to Netanyahu informing us that he is (most graciously) willing to allow the Palestinians to build their own state on what is historically and in present times the land of the Jews. They can have their own flag and even their own national anthem but they cannot have national armed forces to defend themselves, they cannot have control of their air space and they most certainly cannot lay any claim to any part of Jerusalem as that will be the united capital of Israel.

All they must do to achieve this (most gracious) gift is recognise Israel as the Jewish State/Homeland. Yes, correct, not recognise Israel as a sovereign state but as a Jewish state (readers should feel free to pick their "ism" here dependent on whether they consider Judaism a nationality or a religion.) Such recognition, of course, means that the right to return (for Palestinians) is no longer part of the equation and in the longer term most probably means a forced exodus of Arab Israeli citizens to the new Palestinian state (this has already been recommended by Tzipi Livni) but the right of the Jewish diaspora to make aliyah, ad infinitum, remains.

Finally, at the instruction of Israel the “only democracy in the Middle East”, the Palestinian Authority must mount a coup in Gaza toppling the democratically elected representatives of the people.

Failure to do all of the above will demonstrate to the Rest of the World that the Palestinians simply don’t want peace.

Well, how could they refuse?