On Israel's Relations with Arab States

[On peace with Jordan] "No hurdle could stand in the way of this call. No obstacle could overcome it. It was not a leap into the fiery past, but into the light of the future. Not backward to hatred, but forward to understanding."
(Prime Minister Peres at Beit Gabriel, January 10, 1996)

"Israel and Jordan enjoy a model peace - a warm peace, a potential full of creation and building. Where there was enmity, there is amity. Where there was suspicion, there is cooperation."
[Speech at Beit Gabriel, January 10, 1996]

COMMENT: Relations are so "warm" that the anti-normalization movement in Jordan (including the national bar association, leading union, business associations and 13 of Jordan's 20 political parties) has compiled a registry of 300 Jordanians who consort with "the enemy"(Israel). (New York Times, Oct. 15, 1999). Jordan's press association expelled three journalists who visited Israel for a week in September 1999. (Reuters, Nov. 17, 1999).

"We entered the real historic trial to bring an end to the conflict in the Middle East. We were successful with the Egyptians. We were successful with the Jordanians. . . . With the Palestinians, it's complicated."
(Remarks at Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Committee, May 3, 2001)

COMMENT: Relations with Egypt are icy and Egypt has failed to honor the vast majority of the provisions of the peace treaty of 1979. At the "anti-racism"conference in Durban in 2001 Egypt was among the worst offenders in encouraging hatred of Israel and the most opposed to any compromise language in labeling Israel as racist.

[An interviewer from Middle East Quarterly questioned Peres:]

MEQ: You recently proposed that Israel would join the Arab League. Do you still think it's a good idea?

PERES: I think their league should be called Mediterranean League and then Israel can join it. We are not going to become Arabs, but the League must become Mediterranean.

MEQ: The Secretary of the Arab League gave a fairly unflattering answer suggesting that Israeli Jews should become first Muslims and then they would be considered for the Arab League.

PERES: Well, that also shows that it belongs to the past.

MEQ: What belongs to the past?

PERES: This announcement. The Arab League is part of the past. There is no room for an Arab League."
(Middle East Quarterly, March 1995)

"The Arab League is made up of 24 countries, 30 nations - totally anti-Israeli, totally against peace, for the renewal of the boycott, for the continuation of the intifada, for the cutting of relations with Israel, and no reason nor justice nor activity can change their position."
(Briefing by Peres to the Diplomatic Corps, Tel Aviv, September 4, 2001, released by Israel Government Press Office)

COMMENT: In a lecture at the Islamic College in Western Galilee quoted in Haaretz, December 21, 1994, Peres said "No doubt that Israel's next goal should be to join the Arab League."

[Addressing Jordan's King Hussein] "Your Majesty, we stand on the edge of the present. We still face all manner of challenges and the greatest is not to let galloping prospects pass us by. This is our resolve. This is our prayer. This is the commitment of the Prophet Isaiah."
(Prime Minister Peres at Beit Gabriel, January 10, 1966)

COMMENT: Peres abandons his favorite, Moses, for Isaiah. He feels an imperative to cite prophets.

"We don't want to live with our Arab neighbors back to back and on every back a rifle. We want to live with them face to face."
(Reuters Dispatch, March 11, 2001)

"The young generation of Syrians and Israelis will join the young generations all over the world who gave up hatred. It's really like being half blind and opening your eyes and seeing new horizons and new potentials."
(Associated Press, January 3, 2000)

COMMENT: Some of that young generation all over the world - including prosperous young Moslems from England (see the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 19, 2001) - have been training in Afghan terror camps.