New York, NY – Given that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday told Congress “It’s time for (Palestinian) President Abbas to stand before his people and say ‘I will accept a Jewish state,'” Mayor Bloomberg was asked about President Obama’s remarks on the topic, which has fanned international flames.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
“I think the details of how to defend Israel are best left up to the Israeli government. It’s easy for us, thousands and thousands of miles away, how to defend themselves. But keep in mind, they are surrounded by people who for a long time have said they have no right to exist and have threatened to annihilate them.
“I’m sure they’ve made mistakes too. Nobody’s perfect. But generally the rockets come into Israel, they don’t go out from Israel. Generally, the armies attack Israel, they don’t go out and attack anyone else.
“And Netanyahu and Obama and their staffs have to find a ways to long-term have peace – everyone’s in favor of that – but at the same time ensure Israel can defend itself. American has been phenomenally generous with general – they’ve said thanks – and we should be. But we don’t send troops over there, they defend themselves. We don’t have to teach them how to be a democracy, they are a democracy. We don’t have to teach them how to be generous or contribute to the world in technology and everything else, they do that already.”
Q: Is his position on Israel a litmus test for you?
“It’s a long time from now until any election. I certainly look at everything everybody does. Nobody should make a mistake about it: America’s support for Israel is something in the interest of all Americans, not just Jewish Americans, but all Americans. And it’s a very important issue for me.”
Thank you for sharing this information. I hope to see more in the future.
Well said bloomberg.
George Bush and Condi Rice with Olmert were basing the negotiations on the 1967 borders as a principle and as an implemented offer. They offered it. From Jerusalem Post:article by Hillary Krieger : “August 31, 2008, three weeks before he resigned, Olmert offered 100 percent of West Bank land ( 6.8% in land swaps), 10,000 Palestinian refugees returning to Israel’s final borders, and the holy basin of Jerusalem’s Old City coming under joint Israeli-Palestinian-American- Jordanian-Saudi control. He last met with Abbas on September 16 of that year – five days before he resigned, and more than six months before he left office – and Abbas did not respond or make a counteroffer.”
Here are Condi Rice’s negotiations in the leaked Secret Palestine Papers: CR “On territory, I think that you agree that the base is all the territory occupied in 1967. We said this many times in all of our presence. We need to write it down. Even if it is not public. This means, of course, about Jerusalem, the NML, the Jordan Valley. “On territory, if we take as the base, everything that is occupied in 1967 you will find that their position on 7.3% is close….
The day Abbas announces that he accepts a Jewish state is the day he signs his own death warrant. Remember what happened to Sadat?