Gideon Levy, Haaretz, October 1:
What do you call a rejection of peace that is liable to lead to war? What is the term for a state that is not even willing to sit at the negotiating table with the head of a state who publicly issues an explicit peace proposal? If there is a positive angle to the Israeli refusal to consider the Syrian president’s proposals, it is the exposure of the bitter truth: Israel does not want peace with Syria – period. No linguistic trick or diplomatic contortion can change this unequivocal fact. We will no longer be able to declare that we are seeking peace with our neighbors; we are not turning toward them for peace. In the Middle East, a new rejectionist axis has formed: Israel and the United States, which is saying “no” to Syria. Not only is Iran endangering peace in the region, Israel is too. It would be best for us to admit this.
Common sense makes it difficult to understand and the heart refuses to accept how it happened that an important Arab state offered to forge a peace accord with us and we arrogantly rebuffed it. “It’s not the right time,” the statesmen in Jerusalem say. With Syria, it is not the right time. With the Palestinians, it is not the right partner. And when is the right time? Only after the next war. This type of refusal, which is liable to lead to another cycle of bloodshed, is a crime.…