Why Israelis are Wary of a Peace Agreement

By Published On: December 16, 2010

Time magazine and its Jerusalem correspondent Karl Vick were roundly criticized for their article alleging Israel “doesn’t care about peace” because Israelis are too busy “making money” and lounging on the beach.

Carlo Strenger, a self-declared liberal columnist for Israel’s Ha’aretz daily, seems to have a dramatically different take on his compatriots’ attitudes:

The deepest reason most Israelis are weary [sic] of signing a peace agreement with the Palestinians is that they don’t believe that such an agreement will guarantee Israel’s long-term security and survival. They are afraid that the two-state solution is really a two-stage solution; that once a Palestinian state is established within the 1967 borders, the Palestinians will continue to demand the right of return to the State of Israel. As a result, Israel would not receive final legitimacy from the Arab world while losing the negotiating chip of the settlements; and the Jewish homeland would continue to be under threat.

(Vick did briefly allude, in two sentences buried deep in his article, to Israeli doubts about whether there’s a Palestinian partner for peacemaking — but not before about 20 preceding paragraphs implant in readers’ minds that that gluttony and greed are the real reasons for Israel’s purported disinterest in peace.)

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