“You know, with people’s attention on, y’know, other things.”
Tel Aviv, October 12 – Figures on Israel’s left who have long pushed for a resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians that involves Israeli territorial concessions in exchange for Palestinian or international security guarantees have determined that current events might have rendered a planned series of events and publicity to promote the principle somewhat unwise to launch at the moment.
A handful of serving Knesset members, several dozen activists, a similar number of academics, and former legislators from the Labor and Meretz Parties agreed Thursday morning not to pursue a campaign they had scheduled to kick off next week to convince Israelis that relinquishing control of Israeli-held territories to the Palestinians will help Israel consolidate and shore its international standing, its economy, and its safety, a member of the group disclosed today. However, the developments of the last week have prompted some second thoughts on the part of at least half the coalition; a straw poll last night, followed by a formal vote this morning, saw the indefinite postponement of the initiative.
“We, uh, yeah, we think, uh, it might not be the most, uh, effective use of our resources,” acknowledged former Meretz MK Zehava Gal-On. “You know, with people’s attention on, y’know, other things. It’s not going to have the impact we aim to achieve with such a campaign.”
“We ourselves have no doubt about the justice and workability of our ideas,” explained Former Labor MK Yosi Beilin, an architect of the Oslo peace process and model that ceded control to, and armed, Palestinians in areas Israel had taken from Jordan and Egypt in 1967, including the major urban centers of the Gaza Strip, and in the aftermath of which thousands of Israelis have been murdered by Palestinians operating from those areas. “It’s just that there are some loud ideas out there that seem more compelling, more convincing, to many people, and which prevent people from understanding the necessity of implementing something similar again with more territory.”
“We will continue to monitor the situation,” asserted MK Merav Michaeli of Labor. “We don’t put much stock in public opinion polls, because they never show what we believe to be true anyway, but now is obviously not the time. Probably because of all the Likud and Bibi propaganda. That distorts everything. We want to set the record straight, and we have constant talks with some of our Palestinian colleagues about that, but for some reason they’re avoiding us right now. they must be very busy with personal matters or something.”
From PreOccupied Territory, here.
