Jibril Al-Rajoub, the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s national security adviser, said the Palestinians recognize Israel’s existence as a Jewish state within the 1967 borders and do not desire to change its demographic balance drastically.
Rajoub’s statements came in an interview for the new Geneva Initiative marketing campaign entitled ‘We have a partner’.
His direct reference to Israel as a Jewish state and to its demography was very surprising for the Geneva Initiative people.
Rajoub and Yossi Beilin, one of the initiative’s leaders, were filmed in the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.
The Geneva Initiative’s marketing and advertising man Dror Sternshos, decided to carry out this project following surveys claiming that although many Israelis support the initiative, many do not believe there is a partner to an agreement with the Palestinians.
About 10 Israelis of the Geneva Initiative’s most prominent officials and 10 senior Palestinian officials are scheduled to appear in short broadcasts, intended to persuade both sides that there is a partner.
The interviews with the Israeli speakers will be broadcast on the PA’s official television channel, with Arafat’s consent, on Arab television networks like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, while the Palestinian spots will be screened in cinemas to Israeli audiences. The broadcast spots will also be shown in the only cinema in a settlement, located in Ariel.
‘It’s time to break the fixation from the days of Barak and Sharon, that there is no one to talk to,’ Gadi Blatiansky, Geneva Initiative staff director, told Haaretz.
The Geneva Initiative was not very much welcomed by the Palestinians since it does not provide a fair solution for two major issues, the refugees and the settlements, at least from the Palestinian Point of view, local observers said.
On the other hand, the initiative was seen as a super solution for the Palestinian Israeli conflict in Europe and the United States of America.
