The 10th annual Herzliya Conference came to a close on Wednesday (February 3^rd). The four-day conference brought together leading political and security figures from Israel and the international community. It focused on the most pressing issues facing Israel and the region, and included 24 panels with governmental and non-governmental speakers.

 

Below are excerpts of addresses by PM Netanyahu, PM Fayyad and Defense Minister Barak as appeared on the Middle East Bulletin (February 4^th edition). Click here to access more excerpts from the words of additional key speakers relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

“I have a basis to hope that in the coming weeks we will renew the peace process with the Palestinians without preconditions. I have been saying for quite some time that the international community recognizes the fact that Israel wants and is ready to renew the peace process. From the moment that this recognition has dawned on the key elements in the international community, the feasibility and practicality of this move has also come to fruition. … You need two to tango. In the Middle East, you need three, and only later can we continue to dance as a couple. … If there is a desire to begin a process, we will see the renewal of the process within the coming weeks.”

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, panel, “Prospects of Peace: The Israeli-Palestinian Track,” February 2, 2010:

“That exercise we have embarked on related to getting ready for statehood was ascribed by some as a source of concern on the grounds that it is or represents unilateralism by the Palestinians. And I’m here to tell everyone that indeed it is—it is unilateral, as it should be, because it’s about building a Palestinian state, it’s about getting ready for Palestinian statehood, and the state that is being built here is a Palestinian state and if we Palestinians don’t build it, who is going to build it for us? This is not about declaring a state, it’s about getting ready for one. And the program we have embarked upon was not supposed to be in lieu of the political process, it was supposed to reinforce it. These two paths are mutually reinforcing. The political process path is absolutely necessary because that’s what’s going to bring about an end to the occupation. That involves negotiations with the help of the international community, with a key role played by the United States and has been for a long period of time, acting on its own behalf, on behalf of the Quartet and international community at large. …

 

“The path we’re taking … by mid-2011 … by then we will have amassed a critical mass of positive change on the ground consistent with the emergence of the Palestinian state, to where if the political process, the other track, will not have produced the end of occupation that we all desire, that critical mass or positive change on the ground consistent with the emergence of Palestinian state will exert so much pressure on that political process to produce the end of occupation … it’s been described as bottom-up … for it to succeed there is the top-down that is required in the sense of political horizon to give us, but also to give our partners in the international community who’ve been investing in this process, trying to make it happen, that sense of possibility, because like us they’re not interested in continuing to invest in a process—not only financially and economically but also politically and even morally—if they did not really get sense of possibility.”
 

“My feeling about the Middle East is that the weak will not be spared. Peace will not prevail as long as our neighbors seek to destroy us. However, as leaders it is our responsibility to do all in our powers to pursue peace. A Jewish democratic Zionist state will be secure only when we have peace with our neighbors. There are 12 million people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea—7.5 million Israelis and 4.5 million Palestinians. If there is only one political entity in this area it will eventually be either non-Jewish or non-democratic. If that bloc of millions of Palestinians vote, then there will be a bi-national state, and if they don’t vote, then there will be an apartheid state. Neither is the Zionist dream.

“The circumstances dictate our paths. We don’t do the Palestinians any favor but rather this is our interest.”