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Israel, U.S. brainstorm Iran options
- Yet, the possibility of joint military operations had risen dramatically after the two had publicised — during the heat the of the Strait of Hormuz crisis — their decision to hold combined military exercises on an unprecedented scale.
- However, the proposed high profile manoeuvres between Israel and the U.S. have now been postponed to later this year — a step that has significantly lowered military tensions in the Persian Gulf area.
- With the next round of Israel-U.S. military exercises scheduled for the second-half of this year, there is enough time for the interplay of diplomacy and economic coercion, enforced through sanctions against Iran to play its part
- In Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy also said instead of war, sanctions should be the way forward on Iran.
‘Israel must eschew its oppressive policies'
- Attempts to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict either through a two-State arrangement or recognition of a government acceptable to both sides would succeed only if Israel upholds the Palestinians' rights and eschew its “oppressive policies” involving military occupation of West Bank and control over Gaza.
- Speakers said making stereotypes of Palestinians would defeat the spirit of the Oslo Accord of 1993, while admitting to the mistakes of the past would help strengthen the peace process.
- The speakers affirmed that while Israelis and Palestinians should not allow themselves to be the prisoners of the two-State solution, the international community too should not remain a silent spectator to the violence resulting from the conflict and continuation of an unjust order bringing instability to the Middle-East.
- Mr. Shehadeh said Jews and Arabs were not incompatible and had had a long history of co-existence during the Ottoman Empire and in Spain. “Before the emergence of narrow nationalism, Hebrew was sometimes written in Arabic script and its Semitic origin was a [matter of] pride for Jews.”
- Mr. Shehadeh, author of Palestinian Walks, which received the Orwell Prize for political writing in 2008, said the restoration of Palestine with its borders as they existed before the 1967 war would only be feasible if it made a federation with Jordan and Israel. Until a permanent solution was found, there was no justification in denying basic rights to Palestinians.
