Itongadol.- WASHINGTON — A refusal to accept the right to exist of a state for the Jewish people, alongside one for the Palestinian people, is preventing peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday at a conference in Washington.
In a wide-ranging speech, the Israeli premier– fresh off a positive Oval Office meeting the day before with US President Barack Obama– recommitted his government to the two-state solution. But he denied that settlement activity is at the root of the conflict.
"The truth is, the reason we don\’t have peace yet with the Palestinians is not because of the settlements or territorial disputes," Netanyahu told the annual gathering of the Jewish Federations of North America, noting that settlement construction in the West Bank began several decades after the crisis first began. "The reason there isn\’t peace is the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize the Jewish state in any boundaries."
The Palestinian Authority recognized the State of Israel in 1993. But the body still calls for a "right to return" for Palestinian refugees to the state, in addition to the creation of an independent state for the Palestinian people, raising fears in Israel that the organization seeks two Palestinian states.
In his speech, as he has in the past, Netanyahu outlined his theory for this "persistent refusal"– a stubborn hatred of the Jewish people, now manifested in anti-Zionism.
"The lies leveled against the Jewish people," he told the confab, "are now leveled against the Jewish state."
Double standards, he said, are a consistent diplomatic reality for Israel. But they are also a part of the reality of its founding: There has been a consistent refusal to accept the Jewish people as a community with the equal right to govern itself.
"Israel is not a perfect country, but it is judged by a standard that is applied to no other country and that no country can possibly meet," Netanyahu said. "You know what that is? It begins with an A and ends with an M," he said, in reference to anti-Semitism.
"There\’s a special standard for the democracy called Israel," he added.
Netanyahu is in Washington primarily for his meeting with US officials. But he also accepted an award on Monday night from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and will speak to the liberal Center for American Progress on Tuesday afternoon.
The White House meeting focused primarily on a future US defense assistance package to Israel, which will replace the current program, worth $3 billion a year, once it expires in 2017. A senior administration official told The Jerusalem Post that the US is open to discussing Israeli requests for an increase to that funding.
"We\’re not ruling out an increase in our military assistance, but these discussions remain in the early stages and figures have not yet been discussed," the official said. "We are committed to a bottom-up review focused on Israel\’s needs."
At the Jewish Federations event, Netanyahu noted that defense "is very, very expensive," and "gets more and more expensive over time." His government seeks an increase for the next decade-long package to $5 billion a year.
That is not only because of the increased costs of defense, but also because of the evolving security environment in the Middle East. "The president and Netanyahu discussed the overall situation in the region, including Syria, ISIL, and Iran’s destabilizing activities," the US official added.
The deterioration of state structures across the Middle East, and the rise of groups such as Islamic State and the Muslim Brotherhood, may ultimately provide common cause to Israel and Arab states, Netanyahu noted. In the battle between modernity and "Medievalism," he concluded, "modernity must win."