Uri Avnery sees reason to celebrate the new Palestinian National Unity Government.
Not only the Palestinians must be breathing a deep sigh of relief after the swearing in of the Palestinian National Unity Government. We Israelis have good reason to do the same.
This event is a great blessing, not only for them, but also for us – if indeed we are interested in a peace that will put an end to the historic conflict.
So why then, are Israeli leaders behaving like such bad sports?
Israel’s foreign ministry canceled a planned Tuesday meeting with a top Norwegian diplomat in a sign of displeasure the day after he met with Palestinian government leaders from the Islamic Hamas group, Norwegian and Israeli officials said.
“International dignitaries who meet with Hamas officials will not receive meetings with Israeli officials,” Regev said.
The well worn rhetoric from Israel has been their despair at not having a partner for peace. Now that they potentially have one, they have gone sour on the idea. Even the US has expressed its preparedness to talk to the new Unity government, but not so Israel.
I can’t imagine why.
We found out that the Zionist leadership, the Israeli leadership, regardless of the peace plans of the United Nations, contemplated long before 1948 the dispossession of the Palestinians, the expulsion of the Palestinians. So it was not that as a result of the war that the Palestinians lost their homes. It was as a result of a Jewish, Zionist, Israeli – call it what you want – plan that Palestine was ethnically cleansed in 1948 of its original indigenous population.