http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/2010429194642122928.html
Thursday, April 29, 2010
23:51 Mecca time, 20:51 GMT
Knesset speaker hints at one-state
Speaker of Israeli Knesset says that he would accept Palestinians
as citizens of one country. [AP]
Reuven Rivlin, the speaker of Israel's Knesset, has said that he would rather
accept Palestinians as citizens of one country than divide Israel and the West
Bank into two separate states.
"I would rather [have] Palestinians as citizens of this country over dividing
the land up," Rivlin, a member of the ruling Likud party, was quoted as saying
in Israel's Haaretz newspaper on Thursday.
Speaking during a meeting with Kyriakos Loukakis, Greece's ambassador to
Israel, Rivlin said that he did not see any point of Israel signing a peace
agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
He said that he did not believe Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president,
"could deliver the goods".
As speaker of the Israel's parliament, Rivlin would serve as acting president
in the absence or incapacitation of the president.
Last month, Amr Moussa, the Arab league's secretary-general, said that the
league was investigating the possibility of supporting a one-state solution if
Israel left no opportunity to build two states.
Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, told the UN general assembly last year that
a two-state solution is not a feasible approach to bringing peace in the Middle
East.
Fundamental changes
Rivlin said last year that Israeli Arabs were an inseparable part of the
country that often encounter racism and arrogance from Israel's Jews.
In a speech given in the president's residence, he called for a fundamental
change in relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel, urging the foundation of
a "true partnership" between the two sectors, based on mutual respect and
absolute equality.
"Israeli Arabs are a group with a highly defined shared national identity, and
which will forever be, as a collective, an important and integral part of
Israeli society."
Haaretz also reported him as saying that the establishment of Israel was
accompanied by much pain and suffering and was a real trauma for the
Palestinians.
"Many of Israel's Arabs, which see themselves as part of the Palestinian
population, feel the pain of their brothers across the green line - a pain they
feel the state of Israel is responsible for."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
