Herzog meets with Hollande
Photo: Erez Lichtfeld
Herzog urges French president: No more moves against Israel
Opposition leader presents to Hollande and French FM Fabius with his plan to first separate from the Palestinians, and only then move towards two states solution.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) met with French President Francois Hollande and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Friday evening at the Elysee Palace, and urged them to stop promoting international moves against Israel.
Herzog was referring, among other things, to a recent announcement by the European Union that its agreements with Israel only apply within the 1967 borders, and the French plan to push a resolution at the UN Security Council to force negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
"Decisions of this nature serve as a reward for terrorism and for BDS. They paralyze the chances of regional moves," Herzog said. "Israelis would not accept diktats from the world. Israel is a sovereign nation and any move or decision of this nature hurt the Israeli public's willingness to move forward towards changing the situation in the Middle East."
Herzog meets with Hollande (Photo: Erez Lichtfeld)
Instead, Herzog presented Hollande and Fabius with the principles of his plan of separation from the Palestinians.
"The attempt to try and reach a Palestinian state now is unrealistic. A Palestinian state cannot be established now because the Palestinians currently do not have a leadership that controls all of their territories and could lead such a move," he said.
"First of all, we need to create a separation between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We need to invest all possible energy into that. The separation will be accompanied by security and economic measures that will lead to calm in the area and to increasing the sense of security," Herzog continued.
"Right now, the lack of separation increases the friction and the hatred between the two nations in a way that foils any chance of reaching an agreement. Therefore, the world's nations must change directions and aim for what's realistic - primarily a separation that brings calm to the area, and then the international community should back diplomatic moves," he went on to say.
The Opposition leader stressed while he is "a big supporter of the two states vision, we have to be realistic. It can't become a reality now. The hatred and incitement among the Palestinians is just too great, the hostility between the two nations and the leaders' inability to act is preventing the two states solution. Separation and security are a necessary first step on the way to the two states vision becoming a reality."
Herzog thanked Hollande and Fabius for their determined fight against anti-Semitism in France, and expressed solidarity with their fight against terrorism. "We have a common enemy - Islamic terrorism. The enlightened world needs to join forces against it because it threatens all of us," he said.
