Really, Shimon Peres? You mean it?
Published by Avi Green on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 12:31 PM.
Shimon Peres claims that he was wrong about the disengagement, but still leaves a lot to be desired:
President Shimon Peres said Wednesday that he had erred in supporting Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.I hate to say this, but if he's still supporting creation of a palestinian state, then he's just undermining any regret he claims to have. The verdict: he's still talking out of both sides of his mouth and being weak on the issue.
The revealing remarks come three years after Israel's evacuation of the volatile coastal strip which has since been seized by Hamas.
"Whatever will happen in the future, we shall not repeat the mistakes we made in leaving Gaza," Peres said in a question and answer session with a group of American Jewish leaders. "It should have been done otherwise. I was for leaving Gaza. I consider myself as one of the persons mistaken."
The dovish leader, who has long been a champion of Israeli territorial withdrawals, said that although "lessons must be drawn" from the 2005 unilateral Gaza pullout, demographic and democratic considerations still necessitate the creation of a Palestinian state.
"It doesn't change the fact that there is a [demographic] reality," he told the annual Israel meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "I want to make sure that the state we have remains Jewish."
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