Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River
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 Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:57 pm Post subject: I have respect for this person. |
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If the following is exactly whatt he said, then I have tremendous respect for the man. He has stones.
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"Another man said to me: 'Why did we need the peace initiative [in the first place]? After all, we crossed the canal. We could have waited quietly for another five years and then started another war.' How nice! Would Israel have let [us] sit quietly for five years, or even for one day?...
"It boils down to this: [a choice between] war and peace. Any attempt to maneuver between the two is an adventure bound to end in Egypt's defeat. The opposition to and delaying of normalization have harmed Egypt as well as the Palestinian cause..."
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Interviewer: "So you see the peace agreement as a considerable asset [for Egypt], and the Oslo Accords as a political victory. But others see these 'miracles,' as you describe them, as steps down the ladder of concessions."
Salem: "That's the problem. There is a prevailing view that peace is an [act of] backing down. One fellow, an engineer with a PhD who is an expert on the Arab-Israeli conflict, said to me during the [December 2008 Israeli] invasion of Gaza: 'There is no need to revoke the [Egypt-Israel peace] agreement, [but we can] freeze some of its articles.' How can we do that? That thinking is flagrantly irresponsible.
"Another man said to me: 'Why did we need the peace initiative [in the first place]? After all, we crossed the canal. We could have waited quietly for another five years and then started another war.' How nice! Would Israel have let [us] sit quietly for five years, or even for one day?...
"It boils down to this: [a choice between] war and peace. Any attempt to maneuver between the two is an adventure bound to end in Egypt's defeat. The opposition to and delaying of normalization have harmed Egypt as well as the Palestinian cause...
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Interviewer: "I assess that if Iran develops nuclear abilities, this could help the Arabs on the military level. Why don't we want that?"
Salem: "Israel will never let Iran or the Arabs possess nuclear weapons. [But the real problem is] that we are still living in the 1940s or 1950s. At the very least, we are stuck in 1973. How many years have passed since then?
"It has been 36 years, and we are still thinking along the lines of 1973. The advances that have been made in these 36 years - in science, weapons, aircraft, even submarines - do not enter into our calculations at all. What have we done in these domains, while Israel developed and attained military superiority? Even without its nuclear capabilities, [it is still superior to us]. Unfortunately, our development stopped in 1973..."
Interviewer: "To sum up, after 15 years... would you do it again?
Salem: "I would do it 100 times over. [1] went to make peace, to take part in the rapprochement between the two peoples, and to participate in building a channel for peace between them. My book was [aimed at promoting] greater mutual understanding and cooperation between the two peoples."
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| �It is strange that some people [still] say, �What good did the peace [agreement] do us?�� Ali Salem said. �My answer to them is this: �You refuse to recognize [the value] of peace, [and] therefore you are unable to understand what peace has created. . . . The [mere] fact that you return to your home safely and are not hit by a sniper�s bullet or by a missile falling from the sky, that you do not [have to] darken your windows and fortify your door with sandbags, or check the list of the fallen every morning � all that, or [at least] some of it, is thanks to peace.� |
http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD255509
You have to give it to him. Why do the newspapers always seem to report the hate between the jews and the arabs and never seem to mention the moderates in each country.
That man has stones.
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