“Get Real” says Blair, in Jerusalem
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Update 2nd March, 2008
The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting overnight following the worst day for deaths in years between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The security council concluded by bemoaning the loss of life on both sides, far greater in Gaza, but laying the blame at no particular door.
Israel, in the face of criticism from all sides at home, see ‘Israel’s Paralysis’, is not about to cease retaliating for the daily terror attacks from militants in Gaza. Hamas seems unwilling or unable to contain rogue elements. Impasse. Who’d be a peace negotiator in such times?
5th November, 2007
The Israel National news website reports:
Thousands Demonstrate in Jerusalem Against Annapolis Summit
by Hana Levi Julian (IsraelNN.com)
‘Knesset Members, prominent rabbis and leaders of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) addressed thousands of Jews Sunday night protesting against discussions being held between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Quartet Mideast envoy Tony Blair, who represented the U.S., Russia, United Nations and European Union.’
Just in case we were getting too hopeful that something might just come of this pre-Annapolis meeting, thousands take to the streets.
4th November, 2007
ENVOY IN JERUSALEM: TO ISRAELIS, PALESTINIANS & THE REST OF US
[Picture: Condoleezza Rice and Tony Blair at the meeting in Jerusalem today]
“GET REAL”
Blair calls on Israel, Palestinians to ‘get real’
Special Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair called on Israel and the Palestinians “to get real” in order to make peace possible.
“This is the time for everyone to get real,” the former British prime minister said in a speech at the Saban Forum think-tank in Jerusalem.
“If Israel truly believes its long-term security is best served by the Palestinians having a state, it is time actually to make it happen; not to wait and see if it happens, but to push vigorously for the conditions in which it will happen,” Mr Blair said.
“If the Palestinians want a state, they have to accept the responsibility of statehood - taking the tough decisions to sort out their capability, most particularly on security.
“The Palestinian side has to prove that it can run a state and govern it well,” he said shortly after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel may be able to conclude a peace deal with the Palestinians by the end of 2008.
He went on to say that the stumbling block in the talks between Israel and the Palestinians does not lie in the core issues of the conflict.
“The irony is the final settlement is not hard to see. It is visible in the distance, the house on the hill. But the path to it is utterly fraught,” he said.
Mr Blair, who said he was working with the Palestinians on a plan to build state institutions ahead of an international donors’ conference in Paris in December, called on the international community to support the peace process.
“Intentions will not suffice. Only actions will. If the rest of us truly want to help, we are going to have to give it focus, time, relentless effort and support,” he said.
BLAIR SUPPORTS PLAN TO BOLSTER PALESTINIAN ECONOMY Middle East envoy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday he hoped to announce a series of projects soon to help bolster the Palestinian economy. Blair told a conference in Jerusalem that formal negotiations over creating a Palestinian state should not be “impossibly difficult”. But he acknowledged the path was “utterly fraught” and both sides had to take steps to build confidence. Blair said he has presented Israeli and Palestinian leaders with set of proposals meant to improve economic conditions in the occupied West Bank.”They (the Palestinians) need change on the ground,” he said, citing major development projects, including some near the West Bank town of Jericho.Blair said his goal was to announce the first set of economic projects and “a process for getting them actually done” before a U.S.-sponsored conference on Palestinian statehood.Blair and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are trying to bridge gaps between the two sides before the conference, expected in the last week of November in Annapolis, Maryland, although no date has been announced.Israel and the Palestinians are still at odds over a joint document for the conference, which would serve as a launching pad for negotiations on core issues such as borders and the fate of Jerusalem and millions of Palestinian refugees.
BLAIR’S “Big Picture” (The Jerusalem Post)Quartet envoy Tony Blair said Sunday that while the most important reason to settle the Middle East conflict was for the sake of Israelis and Palestinians the strategic importance of the dispute in the world was “vast and profound.”"This dispute has not caused the extremism and settling it will not in itself stop it,” Blair said in a speech at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem. “But, long ago, I began to look at this region not as a series of disconnected little tableaux of issues and challenges, but as one big picture. And today that picture spreads across not just the region, but the world.”
Tags: get real, israel, jerusalem, palestine, peace plan, rice, Tony Blair
