NO PEACE WITHOUT RECOGNITION

Ya'alon: No Peace Until Arabs Recognize Israel - Etgar Lefkovits
The refusal of the Palestinian leadership to recognize Israel's basic right to exist as an independent Jewish state is the main obstacle to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, former IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon said Monday. "Today, I do not see the possibility of being able to settle the conflict without defeating the regimes and terrorist organizations that still hold the idea of destroying Israel," Ya'alon said at a briefing sponsored by Jerusalem's Shalem Center marking 40 years since the Six-Day War.

"Until 1995, I thought we might have a Palestinian partner to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a two-state solution, but I do not think this way anymore, based on the experience of the last decade," he said. "The way to defeat global terrorism is not by solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but by defeating jihadist regimes and their organizations by all means, including political and economic," he said. (Jerusalem Post)

RECOGNITION OF ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO EXIST SEEMS TO BE THE MINIMUM FOR A DURABLE PEACE.