AYALON: NETANYAHU'S PEACE INTENTIONS ARE NOT SERIOUS

West Bank, 29 Dzulqo’idah 1434/5 October 2013 (MINA) – The former head of Israel’s secret service Shin Bet, Ami Ayalon, has expressed doubts over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intention to achieve a two-state solution. “Chances of success are too low,” he said.

In a joint conference with former President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering, Ayalon said: “For almost twenty years, Israelis and Palestinians have been negotiating, but we have not reached a solution.”

The conference was organised by Blue White Future, an Israeli study centre, and provided a forum for several Israeli and European former senior officials to discuss important issues.

Ayalon believes the reason why the current negotiations will fail is because the head of the Palestinian Authority is too weak. “Abu-Mazen cannot offer the Israeli side today what he was able to offer five years ago,” he said. “Even that was not enough.”

He added: “I am sure that Netanyahu will not offer what former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert previously offered to Abu-Mazen.”

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Ayalon also said that the US is now weaker than before and it is no longer seen as an objective mediator in the peace process, thus it no longer has the power to draw the political map in the region.

Regarding Netanyahu’s abilities to understand the political impact of an Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement, even on something like the Iranian nuclear issue, he noted that he does not trust Netanyahu’s intention about peace and a two-state solution.

The former intelligence official explained that most Palestinians think Israel went to the Madrid peace conference because of the first Intifada, withdrew from South Lebanon under Hezbollah pressure and left the Gaza Strip in the wake of “Hamas terrorism”.

Meanwhile, he stressed the importance of not creating another security vacuum similar to what happened in Gaza. “That led to Hamas winning control,” he said.

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A group of prominent Israelis, including former heads of Mossad, Shin Bet and the military, are this week putting forth an initiative for peace with the Arab world that they hope will generate popular support and influence their government as it faces international pressure to move peace talks forward.

Called the Israeli Peace Initiative, the two-page document is partly inspired by the changes under way regionally and is billed as a direct response to the Arab Peace Initiative issued by the Arab League in 2002 and again in 2007. It calls for a Palestinian state on nearly all the West Bank and Gaza with a capital in much of East Jerusalem, an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, and a set of regional security mechanisms and economic cooperation projects.

“We looked around at what was happening in neighboring countries and we said to ourselves, ‘It is about time that the Israeli public raised its voice as well,’ ” said Danny Yatom, a signer of the document and former head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. “We feel this initiative can bring along many members of the public.”

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Another member of the group, Yaakov Perry, a former head of Shin Bet, the internal security agency, said he sent a copy of the document on Sunday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who replied that he looked forward to reading it. The official unveiling is set for Wednesday in Tel Aviv, but a copy was made available to The New York Times.

“We are isolated internationally and seen to be against peace,” Mr. Perry said in a telephone interview. “I hope this will make a small contribution to pushing our prime minister forward. It is about time that Israel initiates something on peace.(T/P08/P04).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)