This Independence Day, Israel still turning its back on the Arab peace plan - Akiva Eldar

Ha'aretz
This was one of our most independent years ever. Completely independently, we decided to welcome the vice president of the United States with an announcement of new construction in East Jerusalem; the deputy foreign minister independently humiliated the Turkish ambassador; the foreign minister independently boycotted the president of Brazil; the Knesset independently sabotaged relations with the European Union via legislation that would limit its donation. 

The extremists who gathered on Massada also decided independently, some 2,000 years ago, to commit suicide. Since then, the term "independence" has acquired a meaning more complex than an act or decision by an individual or group that takes no account of others or of the environment. In modern Western society, independence is not considered the freedom to do whatever one wishes. Responsible governments, like adult people, must find the right balance between the particular and the global. The policies they shape reflect a compromise between the interests of their own community and the interests of the international and regional community.

Sixty-two years after Israel declared independence, its right-wing government is entitled to decide that the time has come to annex Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim and the Jordan Valley - just as the Labor government did 43 years ago, when it decided to annex a sizable territory to Jerusalem. This year, too, Israeli citizens are entitled to celebrate Jerusalem Day in the only capital in the world that hosts not a single embassy. Benjamin Netanyahu can even propose that U.S. President Barack Obama append his list of questions to the Wye Agreement, the road map and the Annapolis Declaration. After all, Israel is an independent country.

.......... the Netanyahu government has implemented the views of the majority of independent Israel's Knesset, which supports the policy of settlements in the West Bank and deepening the Jewish hold on East Jerusalem. To fend off pressure from abroad, Netanyahu has once again transformed the Jewish Diaspora into a defensive army against the might of the nations of the world. The leader of "independent" Israel has transformed Jewish activists into "parties to the conflict" between his government and the American administration (we, of course, are allowed to meddle in American politics).
In its 62nd year of independence, as it has every year since March 2002, Israel is taking advantage of its independence to turn its back on the Arab Peace Initiative. This year, too, it is ignoring a plan that offers it normalization in return for a withdrawal from the occupied territories and a just and agreed resolution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

..........It is true that we are entitled to replace the hand extended in peace and neighborliness with a hand that digs the foundations for more outposts and more graves...   Full story