The Opinions of Peres

by Delta Vines

The wail of sirens and the screams of children as Kassam rockets were shot into the Sderot area of Israel became a daily event for over five years. The need to hide and stay hidden in bomb shelters began lasting beyond a few hours a day, turning into weeks at a time.  It became less stressful to adapt to life inside the shelter; holding school classroom lessons inside the safety of the underground walls.  This was the legacy left by the latter part of the life of former prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Of the more recent candidates for prime ministers of Israel, Sharon seemed to be the most "hawkish".  He had fought in wartime for Israel's safety.  Several pundits posed that Sharon would fight off the Palestinians who attacked the citizens and soldiers in Israel.  Instead, Sharon negotiated away the Gaza Strip, and ordered the "disengagement", leaving hundreds of Israeli's homeless.  This, of course, was with the promise of peaceful negotiations - which never happened.

The person in charge of those negotiations was none other than Shimon Peres.  

Peres was also involved in the secret "unofficial" negotiations that went on with "unofficial representatives" of Yassir Arafat during the Oslo Accords* in 1993. At that time, Peres was the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs under former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Those "unofficial negotiations" became official as the agreement was signed on the White House Lawn during the Clinton Administration.  

One of the conditions of the Oslo Accords was Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.  

This is a pattern of Shimon Peres - negotiate away Eretz Yisrael. 

Now the news is he has endorsed the Zionist Union party of Herzog and Livni in the prime minister election next week.  He and Livni have the same philosophy:  give up land in Israel in order to have peace.  One would think they have learned by now that giving up Israeli land does not lead to peace with the Arab/Palestinians.  

Contrarily, it has only led to more attacks against Jewish Israeli people, towns, and religious/historical sites. Joseph's Tomb was destroyed then made into a mosque, no one is allowed even now to pray on the Temple Mount except for Muslims; people praying at the Western Wall are subject to periodically having rocks thrown on them from the Temple Mount, only Muslims are allowed access to the tomb of Isaac at Machpelah in Hebron;  and even the Church of the Nativity is encroached upon by an adjacent mosque in Bethelehem.  

Non-compliance in the actions of the Palestinians and their leadership has led to the failure of Oslo I, Oslo II, and all attempted peace treaties since between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.  This includes the Wye River Agreement in 1998 between Arafat and Netanyahu. At those negotiations Netanyahu included a "reciprocity" condition which stated that refusing any concessions until the PLO/PA complied on its part and stopped the attacks and violence.  Netanyahu has held to that condition in order to have a safe Israel before giving anything else despite UN criticism. Netanyahu learned from mistakes from previous leadership, as well as his own

Livni, like Peres, wanted once again to give the PA anything they wanted, for yet another promise of "peace".  Some people are slow learners.

Did they not learn from Oslo?

*The Oslo Accords included a total of six subsequent attempts to bring a stop to the violence despite Israeli concessions.  It's history worth reading .