Setting the Stage for a Peace Process that Can Work

(BICOM-UK) Dore Gold - The current initiatives that are being tried by the Trump administration are important because they are trying to liberate us from all the failed peace plans of the past. Most of the architects of peace in the past envisioned a mass removal of Israelis from Judea and Samaria - from the West Bank - and that is simply not going to happen. We pulled out 8,000-9,000 Israelis from the Gaza Strip and we created a scar in the memory of many Israelis from having done that, because we were willing to try to set the foundations of some kind of peace. And what we got was a dramatic escalation of rocket fire shot at Israel. So having tried that in the past, it would have made no sense to develop a peace plan predicated upon the mass removal of Israelis. You shouldn't try and forcibly remove Palestinians either. A peace plan - to be just and to be fair - has to be based on these populations staying in their homes, which is what the Trump peace plan tries to do. We have a horrible experience with how architects of peacemaking have worked. Therefore, in this case, what you have is an effort to create a territorial compromise where Israel remains in areas that are of strategic importance to its future defense. Our position is one that has a firm basis legally, a firm basis morally, and a firm basis for setting the stage for a peace process that can work. We have to give this larger peace plan a chance, as we have in the past, and right now there's nothing else on the table that has any chance of working. Jerusalem Center President Dore Gold participated in a Webinar sponsored by the Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre - BICOM on July 2, 2020.


2020-07-16 00:00:00

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