Applause for Obama for Saying What Leaders Avoided

All that our leaders avoided saying throughout the elections campaign, Obama said - and got a prolonged applause from the representatives of Israel’s young generation

Press Release from Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc
March 19, 2013

It is a badge of shame to almost all political leaders in Israel . The President of the United States had to come to Jerusalem and say all the things which our politicians avoided saying with all their force. President Obama said it clearly and unequivocally - and won a standing ovation and prolonged applause from the representatives of Israel’s younger generation.

For years “peace” had become a dirty word in the Israeli discourse. It fell to President Obama to remind us that peace is possible and necessary, that we do have a partner for peace, that the Palestinians are here and cannot be ignored and that Israel must end the occupation, for reasons of morality and justice but also and especially for the the sake of Israel’s own future.

It’s a shame for those who thought it possible to establish a government in Israel focusing on an “internal civilian agenda” - on recruiting the Ultra-Orthodox to the IDF, as if this is the existential issue facing us, and to forget the occupation and the settlements, peace and the Palestinians. The best which these “new politics” could produce is empty chatter of “negotiations" whose failure is assured in advance and therefore would not break up the present government coalition. With the challenges directly ahead, this would prove a meaningless folly.

ENDS

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