MIDDLE EAST: There was a "window of opportunity" for talks aimed at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a Jerusalem-based peace activist said yesterday.
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, who is on a speaking tour of Ireland, is a spokeswoman for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, which she described as "one of the most committed Israeli organisations working for real peace". This would be a "just" peace involving a "viable Palestinian state". She added: "You can't offer Palestinians cantons."
Describing the political atmosphere in her country in the aftermath of the Lebanese intervention, she said: "The immediate post-Lebanon mood is grim because Israelis understood very clearly that they lost."
But there was a renewed appetite for negotiations: "There is a window of opportunity. People are talking about having a peace conference again, getting back to the table."
She said that housing demolitions were a "microcosm" which provided a means of focusing on the "macrocosm" of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
"Israel has demolished between 12,000 to 14,000 homes since 1967, that's a couple of hundred thousand people made homeless for nothing to do with security." These were not "bombers' families".
There was a "massive PR campaign" making Israel appear as the victim. "If Israel will end the occupation, the entire region will calm down." This was what the Israelis themselves wanted.
A Palestinian state would need a proper water supply to be viable, but Israel had taken over the sources of water for the West Bank: "The wall has managed to annexe into Israel all the major water aquifers."
In addition, there were "almost half-a-million settlers" in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, not to mention a "massive apartheid road system".
Ms Godfrey-Goldstein welcomed the United Nations decision to send a new peacekeeping mission to south Lebanon and the possibility of Irish participation in such a force. "I absolutely approve. The more emphasis there is on the EU and the UN having a central role, the better for peace in the region."
Ms Godfrey-Goldstein speaks at the Teachers' Club in Dublin's Parnell Square tomorrow evening and she has other speaking engagements - in Newbridge, Co Kildare (tonight), and at the University of Limerick on Friday.