All of the citizens of Jerusalem should raise their voice against this project. Jews, Muslims and Christians alike should respect each others’ sacred spaces – without this there can never be peace in this Holy City or in this Holy Land.
Hamas presented a unified list in each district while Fatah and others had a multiplicity of candidates which caused great divisions.
It is time to try a new course that, rather than threatening and punishing, rewards positive actions and encourages the public to support an increasingly better reality. The alternative is more despair and hopelessness.
I do not believe that Sharon will be the prime minister to negotiate a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians, but he will get us closer than any other potential leader could in these times. Yossi Beilin brought us Geneva, but to achieve a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians he first has to get to the prime minister’s seat. He will not. Sharon will be the next prime minister of Israel.
Gerson Baskin believes that It is time to reexamine the axiomatic notion that real cooperation before full peace is not possible.
Once the shift of opinion in favour of the one-state option of the main stream Palestinian leadership occurs, the two-state solution will lose its validity amongst the Palestinian public.
Mahmoud Abbas has promised that the disarmament will happen only after the elections. If Israel insists on disarmament prior to elections, the balance and merging of interests will be derailed and chances are that a new round of violence will open.
Gershon Baskin hopes that one day, the Israeli-Arab conflict will end. The struggle to reach that end will heighten and deepen the feeling of alienation between the two Jewish peoples of this state. We will then have to confront how we live together in peace and mutual respect.
The best immediate solution is construction of a rail link of about 1.5 kilometers between Erez (at the northern border of the Gaza Strip with Israel) and Zikim, which links Gaza to the Israeli rail system.
Gershon Baskin recommends that President Mahmoud Abbas should immediately move his main seat of government to Gaza and that the minister of interior, in charge of the security forces, should also spend most of his time in Gaza.