* Palestinians should cease incitement, recognize Jewish state, Shalev says * New round of U.N. sanctions against Iran may be in offing * Sanctions can buy valuable time
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gabriela Shalev said international sanctions against Iran may delay but won’t prevent the Islamic Republic from developing nuclear weapons.
At a news conference hosted by The Israel Project (TIP), Shalev said the prospect of Iran developing nuclear arms was a “nightmare” and called on the international community to do everything in its power to delay or avoid it.
Shalev, who left her post earlier this month after two years and will soon return to academic life, also discussed the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, recently renewed after a 20-month hiatus. She said the Palestinians should recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland and stop teaching their children to hate Jews.
On Iran, Shalev called the latest round of U.N. sanctions “powerful and pointed” and said diplomatic contacts were underway to pass a fifth round targeting the Iranian Central Bank. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will address the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday (Sept. 23) and Shalev predicted “another terrible speech” by the man who has repeatedly sworn to destroy Israel and denies the Holocaust.
“All these sanctions may not prevent the nuclear race … but may delay it. We are winning time,” she said. “Delay until either they come to their senses or the sanctions will be more effective. We do not believe it will prevent” Iran from developing nuclear weapons. “Delay is the best that I can say.”
Shalev said it had been a “huge, huge step” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the aim of a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in light of his party’s ideology and his own long-held personal convictions. Palestinians need to respond in kind, she said.
“It is only normal, elementary, to ask the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people,” Shalev said. At the same time, Palestinians should stop inciting hatred and get rid of school textbooks that teach young Palestinians to hate Jews.
“You cannot live side-by-side with children who learn to hate Jews,” she said.
At an event hosted by TIP on Tuesday evening (Sept. 21), Palestinian Prime Minister Salem Fayyad told a group of prominent American Jewish leaders his government was committed to an “incitement-free environment.”
“I don’t think one can ever say that we have done everything that could possibly be done … but we are trying,” Fayyad said. “Incitement is a problem and we see it as such.”
David Makovsky, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said earlier this month the Palestinian Authority had taken some steps to tamp down incitement but could do much more. The hate-filled textbooks had still not been touched, he said.
