‘Our enemies want our annihilation, not peace’

Inquiry: The Middle East. Printed beside it, ‘Israel must be pressured to move toward peace’

Netanyahu interviewed by Mary-Ann Bendel; Talhami interviewed by Wendy Buchert

‘Our enemies want our annihilation, not peace’ — USA Today, 11 June 1990 — USA Today · McLean, Virginia · 11 June 1990

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“Benjamin Netanyahu, 40, is Israel’s deputy foreign minister and a member of the Knesset, its parliament… NETANYAHU: In the Middle East, the only kind of peace that can survive is a peace that can be defended.

So we will continue to seek a peace that will enable Israel to change the status quo with its Arab neighbors and the Palestinian Arabs living among us while being able to defend ourselves… USA TODAY: You have often stated that Arafat is locked in a ‘circle of blood.’ Why do you say that?

NETANYAHU: Arafat, himself, preaches peace in the West and practices terror in the East. If he were to genuinely disengage from terrorism and the larger goal of eradicating Israel, he probably would be a dead man. So whether by inclination or whether by intimidation, all the PLO leadership is locked into perpetual war with Israel.

If it’s going to be up to the PLO, there will never be peace. We’ve advocated all along that we should put the PLO aside and move on to more constructive paths where we can find genuine partners for political progress…

‘Israel must be pressured to move toward peace.’ Yitzhak Shamir’s newly organized government is seen as a setback to the peace process by

Ghada Talhami, vice chair of Palestine Human Rights Campaign, a national organization in Chicago. ‘This cabinet has been a great disappointment,’ she said.

‘The press has described it as the most right-wing government in the history of Israel, which includes all the religious and far-right political parties, most of which apparently want more Israeli settlements in the West Bank. And some are even advocates of a policy of eviction of Palestinians to Jordan.’

Talhami, also associate professor of politics and a specialist in Mideast politics at Lake Forest College, added: ‘That is not going to be a cabinet that’s really interested in peace.’… What the USA should be doing: ‘Putting Secretary of State James Baker’s peace plan on the table,’ she said.

‘Baker proposed this a long time ago. The Israelis haven’t moved on it. Nothing will happen at all if the USA refuses to pressure Israel in order to make it accept this kind of a peace plan.’ What would Talhami say to Benjamin Netanyahu? ‘Israel is throwing away the peace and security of future generations of Israelis.

It is condemning Israel to more years of strife with the Arab states, with the Palestinians.’”

Context added by this archive

One page, two interviews, two headlines that answer each other. The Palestinian is an academic in Chicago and the paper gives her a column of her own.

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"‘Our enemies want our annihilation, not peace’," USA Today, 11 June 1990, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1990-007. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1990-007