Tony Blair Quotes
How do you negotiate a two state solution with the Palestinians when they do not believe that one of the states has the right to exist?
In the complicated and arcane Middle East, substantial majorities of Israelis and Palestinians both favored a two state solution, thus creating a Palestinian State out of the West Bank and Gaza. However, the Hamas terrorist organization won the majority of seats in the Parliament and formed the “government” of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas opposed Israel’s right to exist at all, as that position as well as virulent Anti-Semitic threats to all Jews in the world. Many called for Hamas to change their charter and crease their opposition to the right of Israel to exist. The President of the Palestinian authority called for new elections but Hamas refused. Thus Blair and other diplomats the world over were in a very difficult situation.
Tony Blair, British Prime Minister (Labor), Response to critics who wanted him to be a proactive negotiator with the Israelis and the Palestinians over a “two state” solution, BBC News, February 4, 2007
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
A minority of Jewish Israelis do not recognize the United Nations 1949 partition boundaries of the land creating modern Israel. They believe that God gave all the land to the Jewish people—as described in the Bible. Therefore, to them, the West Bank is a part of Israel. No Israeli government has ever maintained that position. However some governments which depend on settler and ultra-Orthodox support do not publicly disavow the position. Palestinians, look with alarm, on this view and the constant attempts at encroachment on West Bank land that the settlers attempt. Like the extremist Palestinians who want to sabotage any two-state solution, there is a minority of Israelis who do the same. These two groups made the peace process very difficult as their adherents are not only very passionate about their views, but have political influence out of proportion to their relatively small number of voters.
The Palestinians were split between supporters of Hamas and Fatah. The former was a terrorist organization which refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist and whose charter called for the killing of all Jews. The latter, accepted the right of Israel to exist and was committed to peace and coexistence with the Jewish state. They had fought a civil war and Hamas controlled Gaza with well over 1 million people which they seized for force and killed of forced out Fatah Representatives. Fatah was the elected ruling party of the West Bank, the larger and more populous of the Palestinian territories. There was little chance of any peace given that split. However, Israel which had undergone over 7000 rockets fired upon them by Hamas, stated that they refused to negotiate with the Palestinians as long as the Hamas terrorists were a part of the control of the potential Palestinian state. They would only discuss a 2 state solution if Hamas agreed that they accepted the right of Israel to exist in their general territory as a Jewish State, Hamas would accept and follow previous agreements made with the Palestinians, and Hamas would give up terrorism and the objective of killing Jews. So either Hamas would have to change its policies or Israel would negotiate with an organization that claimed it would never accept the existence of that country as a Jewish state. Al-Masri thought that the agreement he had mediated, was a necessary first step and was constructive for all the parties.
A major issue amongst Israeli’s is to how they should relate to those hostile Islamic nations in their area who claim they are at war with Israel or the Jewish People. This position in effect says that the oratory of those Islamic groups that claim that they are in a war—a holy war even—should be taken at their word and treated as a wartime enemy and Israel should actively attempt to kill and destroy them.
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. On his resignation he was appointed Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, a diplomatic post which he held until 2015. He currently serves as the executive chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, established in 2016. As prime minister, many of his policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy. He is the only living former Labour leader to have led the party to a general election victory and the only one in history to form three majority governments.
