Yaalon Makes It Clear

Moshe Yaalon is forthright:

A two-state solution based on Israeli territorial concessions to the Palestinians will not lead to broader stability in the Middle East

The story:-

"The resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- which I wish we could resolve and I cannot see it being solved in the near future -- will not lead to stability in the Middle East," he told an annual conference on Israeli national security in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv Monday.

"International pressure on the state of Israel for territorial concessions will only strengthen the jihadi threat being led by Iran today and encourage them to continue to attack Israel and the West," Yaalon said.

"The two-state paradigm as a solution to the conflict is irrelevant at this stage. The solution of the conflict will not solve the Islamic attack against the West."

The former chief of staff was referring to a report published in December by the US Iraq Study Group led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton which stressed the need to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to resolve the wider problems in the Middle East, especially in Iraq.

...Yaalon also said Israel's unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and from southern Lebanon proved that the conflict was not territorial but ideological after last summer's conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinians in Gaza.

"The fact that Israel was attacked last summer on two fronts and continues to be hit by rockets strengthens the sense of a dead-end and proves that the root cause of the conflict is not the occupation of territory," he said.

The cause of the instability in the Middle East is Iran's Islamic regime, which fosters "a clash of civilisations between the West and the radical Islam", Yaalon said.

"We cannot avoid confronting the Iranian regime without which we will not be able to defeat the Jihadi Islam ... I cannot see any change in Iran without external intervention," he said.