A Symbolic Vote in Britain Recognizes a Palestinian State - An Opinion Letter

A British Signal on Israel and Palestine 

Re “A Symbolic Vote in Britain Recognizes a Palestinian State” (front page, OCT. 13, 2014):

To the Editor:

This is the latest in a litany of clarion calls the Israeli government has been willfully ignoring. Israel’s international isolation deepens, and calls for boycotts increase, yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered no concrete diplomatic strategy at the United Nations last month, nor has he since.

President Mahmoud Abbas, in contrast, laid out his plan at the United Nations for unilaterally acquiring the world’s recognition of a Palestinian state.

Israel must take the initiative and demonstrate its readiness to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict within a regional context, while assuring its vital national interests — long-term security and remaining the democratic national home for the Jewish people.

Israel should talk with the Palestinians, begin a dialogue with regional actors and independently delineate a border that secures a Jewish majority while encouraging settlers living beyond this border to come home to Israel proper.

The current regional configuration — a weakened Hamas, a relatively moderate Palestinian Authority leader, an Egypt willing and able to mediate, and a concerted fight against the Islamic State that includes Arab states — provides an opportunity for Israel.

If the United States publicly presented Secretary of State John Kerry’s framework agreement and promoted an approach comprising multilateral, bilateral and constructive unilateral measures, it would also be seizing this moment in history.

GILEAD SHER
Tel Aviv, Oct. 14, 2014

The writer is co-chairman of Blue White Future, a nonpartisan Israeli group promoting a two-state solution. He is a former chief of staff to Prime Minister Ehud Barak and a former co-chief peace negotiator, 1999-2001.

For the Response Letter, as published on The New York Times - Click here