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The good news is that the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has said that he will accept an independent Palestinian state - the cornerstone of President Barack Obama's new effort to make peace in the Middle East. The bad news is that he has hedged this concession with insuperable preconditions. Mr Netanyahu has a fractious parliamentary coalition to hold together. But even as an opening gambit, his demands seem calculated to alienate the other side.
Thus he demanded that any Palestinian state should be completely demilitarised, that Palestinians should recognise Israel exclusively as a Jewish state, that those driven out of Israel in 1948 should forgo any right of return, and that settlements should remain. Of course, Israel must safeguard its territory and have the right to defend its people from a potentially hostile neighbour - but these demands do nothing to encourage moderate Palestinians to engage constructively in a peace deal.
Nor did Mr Netanyahu acknowledge any part of the the Arab peace initiative, which offered Israel full diplomatic recognition in return for a Palestinian state, with an agreement for returning refugees.
Yet the most important practical element of his speech was about the illegal settlements in the occupied territories, which he wants to remain and expand. Indeed, he referred to the settlers as pioneers. But as President Obama has pointed out, the settlements are an impediment to peace; their expansion is incompatible with serious negotiations.
The Israeli prime minister has made a big step in referring to a Palestinian state at all. But the best that can be said about his proposals is that they are just a start. Realistic negotiations must go far further.
Rape on trial
The cliche about the low conviction rates for rape is that out-of-touch judges are to blame. The truth seems rather to be that some jurors are misinformed about the realities of rape and how victims respond to their ordeal. So there is good reason for the Solicitor-General, Vera Baird QC, to promote new directions from judges to jurors in rape trials to ignore the myths. These include the notion that real victims would come forward at once after an attack and that an innocent person would struggle to fight off a rapist. In fact, some women take time to muster the courage to report a rape and many victims are too terrified to struggle with a rapist.
Some rapes also take place in a social context, where both parties may have been drinking. Yet even if a woman is drunk, she cannot be assumed to consent to sexual intercourse. In fact, if she is very drunk the assumption should generally be that she cannot give free consent. These are more difficult cases to decide than a stranger-on-stranger rape and it is right to give jurors guidance.
Defendants have rights, too, and judges' instructions have to be compatible with a fair trial. But judges cannot be absolved from responsibility for dealing fairly with rape victims. In cases where there is a conviction - as happens in more than a third of rape cases brought to court - the verdict is often undermined by incomprehensibly lenient sentences. Both judges and jurors need to be more sensitive to the needs of victims.
Green lines
The proposal by train operators to resurrect some of the rail lines cut in the 1960s deserves serious consideration. For the stations and lines slashed by Dr Beeching are missed not just by rail enthusiasts - they could take pressure off commuters on crowded roads, too. Even with its modest price tag of £500 million, the plan will be lucky to survive the impending era of pubic spending cuts. But it would be money well spent. The trains are already overcrowded and local rail now looks greener than anyone would have imagined 45 years ago.
Reader views (1)
Israel is prepared to accept an independent Palestine, but Palestinian Authorty president, Mahmoud Abbas, has a different vision of a 2 state solution. Abbas wants a Palestine that is free of Jews alongside another state, currently called Israel, that will also become another Arab state. The PA currently has laws calling for the death penalty for selling land to Jews (Jews, NOT Israelis) and they often enforce it without bothering with the trappings of formal legal proceedings. It seems that too much time is spent looking at the suffering of some Palestinians and too little on the policies of the Palestinian, and other Arab, leaders that are the root cause of these problems. Isn't it time to have the Palestinians make proposals that don't involve a thinly veiled requirement for Israel to commit national suicide?
- Aryeh Wetherhorn, Elazar, Israel, 17/06/2009 07:34
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