Peres On The Holocaust & Both Banks Of The Jordan

[ Middle East News Service comments: Another one of those seemingly small news items that carry a much bigger punch than their heavyweight cousins. Run a Googlenews search on Israel’s new president and you will find that just under half the references to Israel’s new president include the word peace. But what kind of a commitment for peace is a statement saying that not only the Palestinians but also the Jordanians are only entitled to a state because “we don’t have the numbers”? It is hard to describe this as a commitment to peace or human rights. Wouldn’t it be interesting for a journalist to ask the President what did he have in mind for the ten-million-odd population of Palestinians and Jordanians: foreign workers in Iraq and Gulf or a national minority in a 120,000 square kilometres Israel? (That’s six times its current size.) As one of my former manager would have sarcastically said: “that’s a bl**dy good start” – Sol Salbe]

Last update - 05:06 17/07/2007
Peres: Holocaust stopped Israel having both banks of the Jordan
By Haaretz Staff
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/882870.html

Shimon Peres, who began his term as Israel's ninth president Monday, said that Ze'ev Jabotinsky's revisionist vision of Israel's occupying both banks of the Jordan River would have been possible had it not been for the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

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Peres spoke at the annual Mount Herzl memorial service for Jabotinsky, founder of the Betar Movement and Revisionist Zionism.

Peres said he found similarity between Jabotinsky and prime minister David Ben-Gurion's positions on the issue of Greater Israel. "Jabotinsky advocated holding both banks of the Jordan. Ben-Gurion supported dividing Israel. They both agreed on the need to ensure a Jewish majority - an issue that is topical to this day," he said.

Jabotinsky's bones were brought to Mount Herzl in 1964, when Levi Eshkol was prime minister.

Ben-Gurion, Peres' political patron, prevented bringing Jabotinsky's bones to Israel during his term as prime minister.

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/882870.html

[The independent Middle East News Service concentrates on providing alternative information chiefly from Israeli sources. It is sponsored by the Australian Jewish Democratic Society. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the AJDS. These are expressed in its own statements]

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