A Saudi-promoted Arab initiative is the best model for peace, Israeli-British “new historian” Avi Shlaim said in an interview in Riyadh, accusing Israel’s premier of sabotaging the process.
On his first visit to the Gulf state, the professor at St Antony’s College, Oxford said he had found Saudis “pragmatic” and ready to recognise Israel’s right to exist if a Palestinian state was created based on pre-1967 borders.
“I was surprised by … the lack of any harsh rhetoric and condemnation of Israel,” Shlaim, an expert on Israeli-Arab relations, told AFP during a one-week visit to Riyadh. “Saudis do not have problems with Jews, but with Israelis.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “intransigence” was to blame for the failure to date of US-sponsored talks between the Palestinians and Israel, he said, voicing surprise Washington was not publicly blaming Israel. US President Barack Obama had gone “head-to-head” with Netanyahu three times over the crucial issue of Jewish settlements, said Shlaim. “Three times Obama lost” and was now “losing credibility in the Arab world.”
Shlaim, a dual British-Israeli national who had to use his British passport to enter the kingdom, which does not recognise Israel, was invited by former intelligence chief Prince Turki Al Faisal, a brother of Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal.
During his visit he praised Saudi King Abdullah’s Arab Peace Initiative, first advanced in 2002, offering Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem.
The initiative is “the best plan imaginable”, he said. It “offers Israel what it always said it wanted”.
Source, Jordan Times.
Comments: By Aaron in Jerusalem:
In the Western Academy, the idea that the best way to end a conflict is to win it has been almost completely discredited. The new idea is that the best way to end a conflict is to commit suicide, thus taking away the motivation of one’s opponent to continue fighting. This idea has been augmented by another idea that strength is inherently wicked and cruel, whereas weakness is inherently righteous.
Another part of this theory is that all human conflict is a result of inequality and injustice, as well as disagreements about religion, which seem particularly silly and wasteful to atheists like Shlaim.
Shlaim is a card carrying member of the group of Western academics who, having totally rejected God and the Bible, believe that the only way the Human Race is ever going to make any progress is if the strong societies like Israel commit suicide so that the weaker societies can ascend. The theory is that once all the worlds societies are on a roughly even plain, there won’t be any more reasons for them to fight with each other and there will be a new era of world peace and unity.
According to the Book of Revelation, someday men like Schlaim will get what they want, and they will be very sorry, as will the rest of us.
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Dear Aaron.
I guess this gives meaning to what Paul wrote:
Not all Jews are Israel. You have to be a Jew inwardly. To reject Zionism, is to reject the calling Father, Son and Spirit had for the Jewish people.
That comment by Aaron in Jerusalem was awesome!
According to the Book of Revelation, someday men like Schlaim will get what they want, and they will be very sorry, as will the rest of us.
My Comment: He’s on the right track, with statements like this. If only people would pick up the bible and see the truth. Not just read it, but feel it and see it.