ISRAEL'S THREE MOST PRESSING FOREIGN POLICY CHALLENGES

ASHLEY PERRY, media adviser to Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, addressed an audience in Netanya's Young Israel Synagogue about Israel's three most pressing foreign policy challenges.

Top of the list is clearly IRAN.
IRAN, Ashley said, is not only Israel's problem. It is a problem for the whole international community. The Arab states are more fearful of a nuclear Iran than Israel, even though Ahmadinajad is threatening the Jewish state with annihilation.
If Iran acquires nuclear weapons watch Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and even Jordan race to acquire them. This is not confined to the Middle East. Asian nations will also feel the need to go nuclear.
Closer to America, Venezuela has been hinting at attaining nuclear capability. Imagine a nuclear Latin America, close to the United States.
It's a domino effect.
If Iran acquires nuclear weapons the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty will be ripped into shred.
Iran is trying to undermine other regimes. Iran's subversive elements were even caught in Morocco.
Iran, under Ahmadinajad, looks at itself not as a small nation but as a super power toe to toe with America.

In 1993, we witnessed the White House handshake between Rabin and Arafat. This was the start of the Oslo process.

Ashley Perry examined how far Israel has moved in the PEACE PROCESS since then, and what has happened with the Palestinians.
He highlighted just a few of the steps that Israel has taken.
We allowed Yasser Arafat together with 100,000 henchmen, many with blood on their hands, to transfer from far off Tunis into the heartland of Judea and Shomron.
We allowed them to create the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah.
We assisted them in their economic development.
We withdrew forces and population from the Gaza Strip.
We reduced forces, road blocks, check points, from what is known as the West Bank.
We permitted Palestinians to train and be armed to assist in law and order in the territories.
We accepted the premise of a two state solution.
We have taken serious and risky steps for peace. We have been killed in the process.

What flexibility or steps towards us have the Palestinians taken in that time?
According to Ashley Perry you need a magnifying glass to find a difference between the Palestinian position in 1993 and today.

The Palestinian today have made the settlements a pre-condition without which they refuse to talk peace. Not many people are aware that settlements constitute just 1.7% of the disputed territories!
The Palestinians have not progressed in the peace process since 1993. They have regressed.
The fact that Salim Fayyad refused to sign a document with the Americans that stated 'two states for two people' should concern us greatly.
Mahmoud Abbas refuses to recognise Israel as the Jewish state.
His attitude has always been "if I have to make one concession I'm out of the door!"

Ehud Olmert offered him 100% of the land, to divide Jeruslaem, to internationalise the Holy Basin, accepted a limited right of return for Palestinian refugees into Israel. This was rejected by Abbas as not enough.

When discussing the conflict with foreign diplomats the argument often goes something like this.
They say, "Jerusalem must be the capital of the Palestinian people".
We say, "That surely is prejudging the results of any negotiations?"
They reply, " That's our position!"

If, on the other hand, we say there is no right of return for Palestinian refugees they tell us we should not prejudge this issue.
They can't have it both ways.

According to international law, refugees must be settled where they are after a limited time period. Greek Cypriots, for example, have no right of return to northern Cyprus, occupied by Turkey. They have been told that too much time has past. 
The same law applies to Palestinian refugees.

Ashley admitted that past governments had given insufficient diplomatic emphasis on Israel's legitimacy to the land.
"We have our rights, including legal rights, to build in Judea and Samaria".

In 1948, The State of Israel was miraculously re-established.
"It was not 'established' as is commonly held. It is important to stress that our nation was re-established after an absence of two thousand years".

Since that date we have suffered wars starting from the first day of our existence. Miraculously, we survived the wars of 1948, 1955, 1967, and 1973.
We then faced the Arab boycott followed by the secondary boycoot, and then the tersiary boycott when companies like Pepsi Cola and major car manufacturers were threatened into not doing business with Israel.
At that time a lot of major international companies weighed the risk of doing business with an Israel of barely three million people against the Arab world of 150 million.
Today, they do business with us because, despite our small size, we are an economic powerhouse.

Modern terrorism was created by the Palestinians and applied against Israeli targets. Plane hi-jacking, the slaughter of Olympic athletes, suicide bombings were just some of the methods devised by Palestinians.
With Israeli security steps, including the separation fence, even this proved ineffective in breaking or destroying Israel.

Today, we face the next stage in their war against us - delegimitization. This and lawfare, as encapsulated in Goldstone, are aimed to make us a pariah state, like South Africa was.
The aim is not to achieve a two state solution. They want a one state solution - Palestine.

They are encouraged in this aim by the United Nations through committees such as their 'Human Rights' Council that includes human rights luminaries such as Cuba, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Libya.

The delegitimization campaign in strongly based on the campus in Europe and in America. The champions of the anti-Israel movement are prepared to disrupt meetings, destroy property, and even physically attack anyone presenting the Israeli position, as they did to Israel's Deputy Ambassador at Manchester University.
She is a petite lady who was physically beaten by rioting students who prevented her from speaking.

When Danny Ayalon was prevented from speaking at Oxford University among the abuse hurled at him was "Isha al-Yahud!' - Kill the Kew!
Not kill the Israeli, but kill the Jew.

They do not want Israel to be heard, but things are changing.
When Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman visited Brazil this year to present Israel's case and open cooperation between Brazil and Israel he was asked "where have you been for seventeen years?" Seventeen years ago was the start of the Oslo process.

Diplomats and the public are hearing, often for the first time, about Israel's legitimate rights.