Who is reticent?

Mr Walinets says:Why, for ALL our sakes, can't you contemplate negotiating seriously and honestly with people you don't like?

Let us see Mr Netanyahu at the behest of Mr Obama announced a confidence buiilding measure of a ten month complete freeze on all settlement construction as a pre-condition for a resumption of talks with the Palestinians - no Prime Minister of Israel had ever agreed to make this concession. The Palestinians waited until month nine before agreeing to meet and then insisted that Israel announce an indefinite freeze as a pre-condition for talks.

Mr Netanyahu has since made a number of conciliatory proposals for resumption of talks and has called for negotiations without pre-conditions but has been rebuffed on every occasion.

As to the religious aspect Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the former Sefardic Chief Rabbi of Israel and the most influential Sephardic rabbi and rabbinical authority, has advocated for peace negotiations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the late 1980s. His main justification is the halakhic principle of Pikuach Nefesh, in which all the Jewish commandments (excluding adultery, idolatry, and murder) are put on hold if a life is put in danger. Using an argument first articulated by the late American rabbinical leader Joseph Soloveitchik, Rabbi Yosef claims that the Arab-Israeli conflict endangers human lives, thereby meeting the above criteria and overruling the priority of commandments pertaining to settling the land of Israel. Therefore, Israel is permitted — even obligated if saving lives is a definitive outcome — to make serious efforts to reach a peace settlement as well as to make arrangements to properly protect its citizens. Rabbi Yosef first applied the Pikuach Nefesh principle to Israel's conflicts with its neighbours in 1979, when he ruled that this argument granted Israel authority to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.

Most Israelis of almost every persuasion accept that there will have to be an accomodation with the Palestinians. This may result in them having their own state on land which religious Jews consider to be part of our "eternal inheritance" and which was recognisd by the League of Nations as such. However in the interests of genuine peace now and the sanctity of life over land such accomodation will have to be made. We are not happy about this but that is the present reality as they say in the absence of divine intervention.

Contrast this with the Muslim view of the situation. The Koran makes it a sin for a Muslim to sign a peace treaty with a non-Muslim unless he is doing it to keep peace with the non-Muslim so he can build his army strong enough to attack and defeat the non-Muslim. The only way a Muslim can be resolved of the sin for having signed the treaty is to attack the party with which he signed that treaty as soon as possible. The Muslim is even permitted to break that treaty to gain the element of surprise.

The fact that certain Israeli leaders signed the Oslo Peace Accord with the Palestinians is the cause of the constantly escalating war with Israel. Arafat and now Abbas cannot have peace again with Israel because of Islamic law. Once that peace accord was signed, the Palestinians had to engage Israel in mortal combat as soon as possible - hence the suicide bombings which commenced almost before the ink was dry on the Oslo Accords. Previously Sadat had signed a peace treaty with Israel, for which he was branded a hypocrite and killed by his own people.

According to Islamic law and tradition, the reason Arafat signed that peace accord was to be able build up his military capability without being attacked by Israel. As soon as his "army" had reasonable strength, he was required to engage Israel in a final mortal battle that would only end with the total destruction of one of them. So we now have Abbas going to the UN to get the nations of the world to create a Palestinian State since if Abbas were to sign an agreement with Israel setting up that State he would be a dead man walking.

So what really is the obstacle to peace?