Gershon Baskin claims that there is no real alternative to direct bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and he knows for a fact that if Netanyahu was serious about negotiating, as he says in public, and came to Abbas with a genuine offer to negotiate, he would be answered positively.
Gershon Baskin makes the case for a new compact for Gaza: reconstruction for demilitarization. Gershon believes that you cannot resolve the problem by just throwing money at it. The reconstruction of Gaza is essential, but the Hamas isn’t the least bit interested in this. This was not what motivated them. It is very much an Israeli/Jewish mindset which says ‘let’s throw money at the problem and resolve it.’
Gershon Baskin feels that during this time of reflection and taking responsibility, this government and the opposition in Israel have a lot to atone for.
Gershon Baskin addresses the Palestinian Authority and PLO leadership on reports that they are about to declare the Oslo Accords null & void.
Gershon Baskin questions the he International Committee of the Red Cross “Family Visits Program” that allowed nearly 80 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to visit family members in Israel’s Ramon prison, without connecting those visits with Hamas’s adherence to international law.
Gershon Baskin wishes that Netanyahu helps to create an Israel whose behavior matches the highest ideals articulated both by the founders of Zionism and by the founders, and current-day leaders, of the American civil-rights movement.
Gershon Baskin believes that people who care about their Holy Places should not use them as places to launch violence against others, and that al-Haram ash-Sharif/The Temple Mount in the holiest place in the world for Jews and Jews should have the right to pray there.
The people of Gaza should know that they are sitting in the dark because the leaders of Hamas refused a deal to provide them with more electricity in exchange for releasing the 2 israeli civilians: Abera Mengisto and the Bedouin and the two bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oran Shaul.
Gershon Baskin thinks that the Palestinians should issue a unilateral declaration of peace between the State of Palestine and the State of Israel, which would transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a state-to-state dispute that would be more easily accepted by the nations of the world and the members of the UN Security Council.
Hamas sources told Baskin that they did not keep track of Mengistu and they believe he went to Sinai via a tunnel and have no knowledge of his whereabouts.