Doaa El-Bey gauges the fear introduced by swine flu and the concerns fuelled by Netanyahu's racist policy address Writers were in unanimity that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's racist speech shattered all hopes for genuine peace in the region. Omar Helmi Al-Ghoul wrote that Netanyahu's address on Sunday abolished all the rights of the Palestinians. Elaborating, he wrote that Netanyahu did not put a settlement with the Palestinians as the top priority. He asked Arab leaders to hold a summit meeting in any Arab capital or in Jerusalem as if it is the capital of Israel, thus implicitly calling on the Arabs for immediate normalisation. He called on the Arabs to invest inside Israel out of his conviction that any settlement should start at the economic level. He did not mention the Arab peace initiative or the roadmap at all. He called on the Palestinian president to start negotiations with him without committing to a two-state solution. He affirmed that Jerusalem would be the eternal capital of Israel. He vetoed the right of return and instead asked Arab states to allow Palestinian refugees into their lands. He stuck to building more settlements and hailed the settlers for contributing to keeping Israeli land. And finally he rejected the establishment of an independent sovereign Palestinian state. Unfortunately, the US welcomed the speech although it is a slap in Obama's face and a rejection of all the demands he included in his speech in Cairo, namely the establishment of a Palestinian state and a halt to building more Israeli settlements. Ghoul called on the Arabs to take a firm stand towards the speech that torpedoed all hopes for peace. Perhaps the first step they should take, the writer suggested, is boost the inter-Palestinian dialogue and put an end to division. Then, they should hold an emergency summit in which they should put the world before two options: either accept the Arab initiative with its four points or give themselves the right to withdraw from the plan, making the world responsible for the repercussions. "The Arabs should also immediately stop any normalisation with Israel and cut all diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv," Ghoul concluded in the Palestinian political daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida. Rasha Eissa noted intended confusion in Netanyahu's speech which aimed to misguide and mix up the concepts in a way that is impossible to understand. He directly focussed on the racist and remarkably extremist concept when he frankly said Israel was "an absolute Zionist state" to the extent that it seemed that racism is talking about peace, and ethnicity about neighbourly relations. Eissa wrote that whoever uses such racist language should not talk about genuine peace and whoever refuses a stop to more settlement building and returning rights to its owners lacks any conviction. "Thus his talk about peace is unrealistic and pays mere lip service to the US calls for peace," she added in the Syrian political daily Tishreen. The London-based independent political daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi described the US response to Netanyahu's speech as hasty and questioned the criteria on which Washington based its reaction. Some US analysts claimed that the US administration regarded Netanyahu's mentioning of a Palestinian state as a great achievement because of his previous stand that rejected the two-state solution as a basis for negotiations. Perhaps the most provocative point in the speech according to the newspaper's editorial was Netanyahu's insistence on Palestinian and Arab recognition of Israel as a Zionist state. That recognition means that over a million Arab Muslims and Christians have no right to live in Israel. "Netanyahu's speech, which revealed an extremist, expansionist and racist ideology, will test the US administration's credibility, and its role as an honest mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its success or failure in the test depends on its response to an unprecedented and insolent Israeli challenge," the edit read. The Qatari daily Al-Watan wrote that Netanyahu's speech dashed all the hopes that followed Obama's speech in Cairo because he insisted on judaising Jerusalem, and tried to snatch normalisation from the Arab states without any progress in the peace process. He also offered a number of decapitating conditions that he knew beforehand would be rejected not only by the Arabs and Palestinians but by the international community. Netanyahu tried to appeal to the extremists in his government without angering the US; thus his speech was meaningless. He failed to read the recent political developments well and also failed to realise that the Palestinians cannot give up their legitimate rights. The Omani daily Al-Watan wrote that Netanyahu's speech was a repetition of previous speeches by previous extremist Israeli leaders who promised nothing and asked the Arabs and the world for everything in return. "Netanyahu did not accept a Palestinian state. He only offered a number of conditions that made the establishment of such a state impossible," the edit read. "It is a state which cannot possess weapons, or conclude military pacts and which is controlled by Israel from land, sea and air. Thus the Palestinians would live in a Zionist Israeli state with united Jerusalem as its capital." In addition, he asked the Arab states to accept Palestinian refugees in their lands and invest their money in Israel. The edit concluded by describing the speech as a fantasia and a slap in the face to all those who think that Israel is capable of offering peace as a final settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Tariq Al-Homayed wrote that Netanyahu's speech was a response to Obama's demands in his speech, including a halt to building more settlements and recognition of a Palestinian state. "What was new in the speech was the talk of a Palestinian state but the conditions were not." However, the writer warned the Arabs not to involve themselves in a hasty response because it was directed to Obama above all. "Netanyahu wants to manoeuvre by claiming that Israel is making concessions in return for decapitating conditions in the hope that the Arabs would reject them. Then, he can claim that the Arabs spoiled Obama's plans," Al-Homayed wrote in the London-based political daily Asharq Al-Awsat. The writer pointed to two important points: first, the US said that it would abide by establishing two states, a Zionist Israeli state and an independent Palestinian state. So the request for the recognition of Israel as a Zionist state conforms to US policy. Second, the Arabs should not confront Israel directly by responding to the speech on behalf of the US. However, the US response to the speech indicated Washington was not tricked by it, as Al-Homayed concluded.
