Israel must overcome a “crisis” in relations with America by rebuilding its bipartisan support among Democrats and Republicans, Shimon Peres said this week.
The former president of Israel told The Telegraph that reviving the “two-state solution” to the conflict with the Palestinians offered the best way of healing the rift with Washington.
Peres voiced his unease about Israel’s current predicament and, in particular, the breach with America.
“I’m very concerned, but I think it can be corrected,” said Mr Peres. “And I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be done…
“We have to straighten out that we are working with the two parties the whole time,” said Mr Peres. “Israel, for all our life, enjoyed bipartisan support. There are various impressions that we are not following the rules. We have to return to the two-party support, because basically the sympathy for Israel remains.”
Peres observed that relations with the US were in a “crisis that we have to overcome”.
Asked who was responsible, he replied: “It’s unimportant. Everybody knows there were things and I don’t see any reason for me to go into it and say ‘this was wrong, that was wrong’. I don’t think it’s helpful. Suppose I should find the person who is to be blamed? Believe me, I’m not going to hang him, nor am I going to hang up on him.”
Peres added: “I think as much as I can about the future, how to repair it. And I think it’s possible. I think if Israel will go for a two-state solution, most of the crisis will disappear.”
Netanyahu has accused Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, of celebrating terrorists and inciting violence. But Peres offered a profoundly different view. Asked whether Abbas could be Israel’s partner for peace, he replied immediately: “Yes.”
Peres added: “I know him and, look, he agreed to many things. And it wasn’t simple.” Mr Peres went on: “[Abbas] made compromises. He also made mistakes. But you negotiate because you don’t agree. We have enough disagreements to negotiate. And I believe we have enough ingenuity to find unused solutions.”
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get the ghetto out of your head. Stop apologizing for being Jewish. No, Bibi doesn’t have to go hat-in-hand and beg Barak Hussein for anything. That anti-Semite abused YOUR PM over and over again. You should stick up for Bibi, for Israel, for the Jewish nation. Does Hussein dictate to any other country in the world what they should or shouldn’t do?
Hussein doesn’t believe that Iran is a threat to America, so he’s OK with the deal that he got. To hell with Israel and the Jews, if they get nuked – so be it. How did the US react when Cuba might-have-been a threat to their people? What chutzpa does anyone have to tell us how to defend ourselves? They’ll ‘protect’ us? Do the embargos of 48, 56 & 67 ring a bell? Who helped your relatives as they were being gassed -not that long ago? Not even to bomb the train tracks leading to the gas chambers (endangering not one GI). And they’ll help you in your time-of need when the chips are down? Do you really believe that?
Did not the silence of Assad’s mass killings & gassing of arabs give you an earache? But ONE Israeli who mishandles an arab (or just the building of a porch onto a house in ‘occupied’ territory) brings the world down on us.
Shimon, we’re Jews – we’re different.
Shimon, wake up.
The crisis of the relationship with America can be over in 2016.