Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in his speech at the prestigious Herzliya Conference Tuesday that there is "a silent majority" in Israel in favor of a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority. This silent majority, he said, “tends toward the Right at the ballot boxes,” but will favor a peace deal and back the government's decisions.
Barak mentioned Israel's fluid borders during First Temple and Second Temple times as proof that in ancient times, too, Jewish leadership took into account realities on the ground. "To my religious friends I say, the Divine Promise existed in the past and yet the borders changed because the leadership was rational,” he said. “To my friends in the Left I say, do not be naïve. Peace is not a religion, peace is a practical vision, a means toward achieving a strong and flourishing Israel.”
With Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the audience, Barak reiterated his support for a two-state solution. He said that he once told Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas that the most difficult decisions are made vis-a-vis one's own people. “And Netanyahu, too, will have to make difficult decisions with our people,” he said.
MK Aryeh Eldad (NU) attacked Barak's speech and called the conference “the 'Peace Now' Conference” – a reference to radical pro-appeasement group Peace Now. In his speech at the conference, Eldad said, Barak “proved that he has learned no lesson in the last 15 years and that he repeats the hollow slogans of the Oslo accords – and this time he leans on Netanyahu's agreement to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
"Unsurprisingly, the word 'demilitarized', which was Netanyahu's fig leaf, was dropped from Barak's vision of a Palestinian state,” Eldad said. “If the government does not wake up from its delusions in time, Israel could bring itself to a suicidal danger,” he warned.