In an amazingly forthright interview with the Jerusalem Post, President Moshe Katsav blasts previous and current Israeli administrations for making enormous concessions and receiving nothing in return.
In a startling departure from his usual resolute non-intervention in the internal governance of Israel, President Moshe Katsav has launched a scathing attack on a series of Israel’s recent prime ministers and governments for failing to “get anything in return” for the historic concessions they made in signing the Oslo accords, endorsing the notion of independent Palestinian statehood, and pulling out of the Gaza Strip. Because of this cardinal error, he said, Israel was today further from peace with the Palestinians than it would otherwise likely have been.
Speaking exclusively to The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, Katsav ascribed the record of incompetence to a consistent failure to carry out appropriate preparatory work ahead of major diplomatic moves, and to the abiding absence of an agreed “map of vital Israeli national and security interests” to guide policymakers.
Whoa. There’s going to be a storm when people wake up and read these comments this morning:
Failure to first agree on a blueprint for Israel’s vital interests, and then to carry out orderly staffwork, said the president, had led to “three big mistakes” in the past 13 years.
“We didn’t get anything in return for the Oslo accords,” he said, stressing that he was not saying he opposed the accords per se. Similarly, with the Road Map, “the Knesset and government declared that we support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. That is a major, historic concession and we didn’t get anything for it. And I’m not opposed to the road map.”
Finally, as regards last summer’s disengagement, which again he stressed he did not oppose in principle, “here too, there was a big mistake. We took the army out of Gaza, we evacuated 25 Jewish settlements and we got nothing in return.”
And he is right. Israel got nothing. The world is as quick as ever to blame Israel for anything that goes wrong, completely ignores the daily rocket attacks on Israel by palestinians from Gaza, insists that Hamas is moderating when Hamas states quite clearly that they want nothing less than the removal of the Jewish state and its replacement with an Islamic caliphate.
Here’s what Katsav thought should have been done:
Offering a particularly detailed critique of the preparation for disengagement, Katsav said that the pullout should have been coordinated with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Had this been done, “the problems in the Philadelphi corridor could have been avoided. The political crisis would not have occurred – the collapse of the [Israeli] government. Hamas might not have been victorious. The confrontation with the settlers would have been less intense.” The “massive arms smuggling” that went on “in the two or three weeks between the army’s departure and the entry of the Egyptians and the international force [might have been prevented]. Al Qaida might not have got into Gaza.”
Definitely worth the full read.