 To start, I could just as easily have called this talk with the real Netanyahu step forward. Because, you know, he comes across as a man who is very sort of tough, rigid, a man who sort of is unbending in terms of what he considers to be the interests of Israel. And that's fine. But, while it's important obviously to understand where Netanyahu is coming from, it's also important to understand what Israelis want. Because of course we know that, you know, it's not easy to discern what the electorate might concede, what to do at any given time in the outcome of negotiations. No political survivor like Netanyahu is as politically rigid as he pretends, and no electorate is ever of a single mind. This is particularly true in Israel where none of the 12 political parties in the last election, 2009, got more than 22.5% of the vote. The Khadim in fact got the 22.5%, Khadim got 21.6%, but the leader of Likud is the Prime Minister with 27 seats out of 120. So you can see there are, as I say, 12 political parties. Six of them got something like 6%, sorry, 3% or less in the election. So you can see how fractured the politics is. The Labour Party, which used to be a very significant party in Israeli politics, managed to reduce itself to 9.9%. There are thereabouts at the moment. It declined in recent polls, well up to about a year ago anyhow to around 6%. It's beginning to climb again, it has elected a new leader. It lost its old one. He left and formed a new party in the last few months. So we have to try and make a judgment about what it is Netanyahu wants and indeed what he's likely to concede. We have to try and, as I say, untangle the puzzle. I say puzzle because not for the first time in my view, he has missed an opportunity to win friends. I would have thought that if he wanted to go into negotiations this time, he would have won the heart of the world had he said yes to UN seat for the state of Palestine. He would have made it particularly difficult for Abbas to refuse such an offer. He would also have helped his ally President Obama in his reelection efforts. In the US he would have also enhanced, which would have enabled Obama to enhance the status of the United States in the region. He would have changed the mood in Europe towards Israel and the Arab world. And it would have cost Israel nothing, not nothing. What exactly would it cost Israel to say yes to UN seat for the state of Palestine? It simply seems to me that it would have been a win-win all around as the cliché says. Indeed, I would argue that it's not too late for him to switch that. And he would still make considerable gains, in my view, both politically, domestically and internationally. No doubt he would probably lose his foreign minister, Mr Lieberman. That might or might not precipitate an election. On the other hand, Kedema has said that they are willing to support Dan Netanyahu in negotiations and finding a way through inter-negotiations. Even if it did precipitate a general election, Netanyahu would have a very strong card in terms of presenting himself as an international statesman who has taken a bold step to open up the whole area of negotiations and to find a way forward. So he would have a very strong card, in my view. So why has he not taken this line? Why has he, by taking his position, almost obliged the United States to take a similar position which has not been good for Obama and not been good for the United States in the region? I think we have to take this into account that Prime Minister Netanyahu is the leader of the Likud party. He has constructed a governing majority whose task it is, obviously, to deliver peace and security and prosperity. How he does that is driven in the first instance by his own politics and secondly by his coalition partners that I have already mentioned, that he has chosen to go into government with. And there is no doubt that most of his partners harden his position rather than act as a moderating force. The constitution of the Likud party, which is on the web, it can be found at netanyahu.org.israel, says in article 2, the Likud is a national liberal party, a bit like the PDs, if you like, which advocates the ingathering of the exiles, the integrity of the Jewish homeland, human freedom and social justice, and it strives to achieve these goals by a, bringing together the Jewish people in the land of Israel, ingathering its dispersed people, cultivating love of the country in the hearts of the people and recognising the shared destiny of all the Jewish people and safeguarding the right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel as an eternal, inalienable right, working diligently to settle and develop all parts of the land of Israel and extending national sovereignty to them. I should add, of course, that it also commits its members to in maintaining a democratic form of government, guaranteeing the supremacy of law, human and civil rights, freedom of conscience, individual freedoms, equal rights and opportunities of all the citizens of the state and providing discrimination on the grounds of gender, race, ethnic origin, religion, status or viewpoint. And that's not the totality of their constitution, obviously, but I think these are key elements for the point of view of our discussion here today. The land of Israel is not defined in the constitution, in the party constitution, nor is it defined in Israel's basic laws. It is understood to mean the biblical land of Israel. In other words, it means Palestine as a whole from a Mediterranean to the Jordan and even further, for the Morzellus. It also includes Jerusalem as a whole of the Israeli capital. This goes way beyond the territory allocated to the Jewish state, and I mentioned that fact because Jewish state was specifically mentioned in Resolution 181 of 1947 because there's a lot of debate and we can talk about that about whether or not Israel should be recognized as a Jewish state or not. But as I say, it goes way beyond the territory allocated to the Jewish state in the UN Resolution of 1947. In other words, it includes the land allocated to the Arab state, which is referred to in the UN Resolution. And it's worth noting here that the resolution also provided for international management of a united Jerusalem for a period of 10 years to be reviewed after that. And interestingly, an economic union between the two states, which we never hear about, which I think is quite interesting that in 1947 there was this proposal. In short, the liquid party, and presumably its leader, is committed to a one-state solution. This helps to slain a number of things about Netanyahu. The first thing that is very justification for the settlement or colony building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is claimed that Israel will have to make painful compromises to allow an independent Palestinian state to emerge. It's claimed that settlers which his predecessor, Mr. Olmurt, removed from Gaza were actually living in Israel. He's denied that the IDF is occupying the West Bank. And the annexation of East Jerusalem, of course, justification of that as part of Israeli territory. Each of you read his speech in the UN last week, I think it more or less confirms that view, that world view that he has. Now, I'm not claiming that one's party constitution or even one's national constitution precludes a negotiated compromises on the boundaries of a national territory. The Irish constitutional claim on the territory of Northern Ireland, which incidentally also ignored the worrisome reality of the presence of a very large indigenous population in the United Kingdom, was amended as part of a package of compromises which brought about the peace that we now know. And I am not aware of any party in the Republic or Northern Ireland that has changed their constitutional aspirations with regard to the United Ireland or indeed the United Kingdom for that matter. Any member of Sinn Fein can correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge they have not abandoned their aspiration to the United Ireland nor am I aware that the IRA and any of its manifestations have ever done so. The key to a compromise for an end to a conflict over territorial rights is a commitment to maintaining a negotiated compromise which has been approved by the people affected and that any future change will be pursued by force of argument rather than force of arms. In the Middle East the conflict is primarily around the issue of which nation, the Israeli Jewish nation or the Palestinian Arab nation has a right to the historic territory of Palestine. Many Israelis regarded as theirs while many Palestinians regarded as theirs. Each produces evidence, religious, historical and archeological to sustain their claim. In other words, there is a clash of rights. An ideal solution in an ideal world would be for both nations to live in a single binational state or even federal state, but for historical and religious reasons very few believed that would work. As a result, for many years and 40 years after the 1947 partition, the PLO in 1988 made the historic offer to accept a Palestinian state on the territory they were left to it after the war in 48. Their border with Israel and Israel's border with them would be the pre-67 line, which was of course breached by Israel's occupation following the 67 war. This would lead the Palestinians with the West Bank in East Jerusalem and Gaza. This, I think, is an extraordinary offer to Israel. It accepts that a Palestinian state would exist on only 22% of what they regard as their historic homeland while conceding that Israel would have a legitimate right to 78% of what they regard as their entitlement. But another way, Israel concedes 22%, while the Palestinians concede 78%. But Prime Minister Netanyahu and most of his coalition partners clearly want more. This is evidenced by his decision to continue the relentless building of homes for Israeli settlers in the West Bank and in Palestinian East Jerusalem and also to provide subsidies for settlers there, providing Israeli-only roads, linking them back into Israel with the social problems in Israel itself, which came to the fore this summer. And the obvious difficulties it creates for the resumption of negotiations. I refuse to stop in the face of repeated pleas by the European Union and by the USA. Reinforce of the view that there is a desire at the very least to entrench control of as much Palestinian territory as possible before the inevitable compromises have to be made if negotiations resume. The Netanyahu demand that Israel must have the right to continue to occupy the Jordan Valley on security grounds would squeeze even further the territory of the Palestinian state. The Jordan Valley is already a militarized zone controlled by the IDF, which applies military law under which they deny local Palestinians permits to build homes, schools and places of worship in that area on security grounds. And when they go ahead and build anyway without permits, they are then demolished. Despite all this, Prime Minister Netanyahu says that he favours a viable two-state solution. Not mind you, a two viable states solution. And I think there is a key distinction there. Because of course, you know, you know, viable two states can mean leaves the question of, you know, what is the nature of the two states and the extent of the two states. Taking the conditions he is creating on the ground as a reflection of his real intentions, his definition of what would constitute a Palestinian state would be nothing more than a series of Palestinian reservations or Bantastans separated from each other by Israeli-only roads servicing the settlements, some of which are small cities with Palestinians dependent with Palestine dependent and Israeli-Israel for water and energy supplies and with no economic independence. And I think you can already, if you look at maps which shows the UNRA, the United Nations refugee agency and indeed the various other people produce maps, but there are official maps which show the location of settlements and the location of roads and the way in which they divide us into sectors as a result and it's very clear that you will have pockets of territory which a Palestinian state will control but there will be no contiguous state and bearing in mind that the European Union's call is for a democratic viable contiguous state. It's important that this issue also is addressed in terms of the settlement so it's not just a question of negotiations stopping the halt to the settlements for now pending the outcome of negotiations but it's clear that something has to be done with settlements that are already there at least those that are deep inside the West Bank if we're going to achieve a contiguous state and indeed avoid the kind of clashes that would be inevitable if things remain as they are. Then the question is what does what Netanyahu want reflect what Israeli society wants? The answer as always is yes and no in politics. One can assume that a majority of Israelis agreed with Netanyahu at the time of his election in 2009 otherwise they would not give him and his coalition partners a majority. However, electoral results don't necessarily reflect people's views on what concessions should be made in peace negotiations. As we know from our own experience in Ireland people are prepared to make very significant compromises for peace. I often relate to my colleagues in the European Parliament my own experience at all on the question of the Irish constitution. I recall proposing a private member's bill in the Dall to reform those articles from a territorial claim to a desire for a united Ireland by consent. My proposal was heavily defeated by the other political parties in the Dall at that time. Yet six years later when that very reform was included in a broad package of compromises by all sides to the conflict the people of this public voted overwhelmingly for it in a referendum. But how can we judge what the electorate in Israel and Palestine would support in a possible referendum on a settlement? One of the tools in modern peace negotiations is the use of what are called peace polls. There's a Dr Colin Irwin who I invited over to Ireland about a year ago to talk to us about this issue. He's a lecturer in the Institute of Irish Studies in Liverpool University and he's been commissioned to conduct peace polling on conflicts around the world for many years including Macedonia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Cyprus and Kashmir and indeed Northern Ireland where his services were used. I think he carried out something like nine polls in the course of the negotiations where the effort was to identify in terms of what was being discussed by the parliament parties what kind of reaction did these various ideas have amongst the electorate? The idea was to try and see what would be acceptable but also not so much what would be completely acceptable but what level of objection was there because equally the level of objections to a particular proposal is just as important because if you have 50% saying no or 40% saying no then you've got a serious problem if you've got 10% saying no or 20% saying no you can balance balance them. In 2008 he was commissioned by the One Voice Organization which is an NGO which works both in Palestine and Israel which seeks to find common understanding between Palestinians and Israel about the future about their life and about living together and they commissioned him to do a poll on the Middle East Conflict the idea was to identify what people on each side might accept and just as important that he rejects which helps clearly negotiators to judge what might be acceptable to one's own supporters because of course you have different parties in the negotiations and taking the Northern Ireland example what would be acceptable to the UUP might not be acceptable to the DUP what might be acceptable to Sinn Fein would not be acceptable to the STLP and so on and so on and then likewise in this case what was acceptable in the Republic because of course we had a critical interest in bringing the whole thing to an end. Dr. Colinearwin has a warning however about polling he warns about the damage that can be done to peace processes by partisan polling either from an Israeli or a Palestinian perspective in other words attempts to mobilise public support behind a particularly negative position for instance in the course of negotiations which can actually block negotiations the role of the peaceful is to try and find agreement not to find where agreement lies rather than trying to find or create obstacles. He published his piece in April 2009 not long after the current Israeli Knesset was elected his findings make fascinating reading and I'm not going to go into them in detail because it's a very long reportant but it's worth looking at it's worth reading for anybody who's interested in seeing how people use crossover but as I said they make fascinating reading but are in my view a basis for hope that the conflict can in fact be brought to an end with a sustainable peace based on the 67 borders with land swaps shared capital for Jerusalem and a solution to the problem of refugees the poll found that over 70% of Israelis and Palestinians want a negotiated peace and found that over 70% of Palestinians and Israelis want or will accept a two state solution while there's only marginal support on either side for either from the Palestinian side historic Palestine state the historic homeland and there's only marginal support on the Israeli side for the same idea for the idea of Israel as a totality from the Mediterranean to the Jordan so I think that's an important one and our other result that is encouraging was the suggestion that Israel should freeze settlements as a first step to deal with the settlements only 23% of Israelis found that unacceptable separately only 23% of Palestinians were opposed to the proposal to stop firing rockets from Gaza in other words more than 77% of Palestinians want firing from over rockets attacking Israelis whether they civilians or they have to stop which I think is a very hopeful sign after 30 years of the troubles and failed negotiations in Northern Ireland of course the governments of Britain and Ireland and the US moved to internationalize that process and they made the people and civil society active partners and that is precisely what President Abbas has tried to do in the last two weeks his strategy has pushed the conflict to the top of the international agenda with the USA unable at this time to lead as a neutral the European Union I think can offer leadership Cadi Ashton has built a reputation in the region as a fair minded and tireless high representative on behalf of the EU the member states must now I think unanimously backer in our efforts to persuade both sides to get around the table there is a window of opportunity now which won't stay open forever I think finally going back to the Irwin poll it's worth noting that 73% of Palestinians and 52% of Israelis were opposed to the idea that the PLO and FATA and Israel should negotiate in secret they are of the view that has failed in the past and we kept informed they say they would prefer if progress in negotiations they would like to see target set they would like to see timetable set and they would like to see milestones sort of identified in terms of making progress so I think bearing in mind that this was a poll which was published in 2009 around the same time as the current Kinesis was elected and of course you know as a week is a long time in politics we see that it indicates on the underlying ideas on both the Palestinian side and on the Israeli side amongst the people is that they want peace they want to negotiate they have a fair idea of what they are likely to accept what they are willing to accept in terms of an agreement which will enable Palestinians to live a decent life and they would live in peace I think there is hope for despite the fact that at the moment things look a bit bleak in terms of negotiations but being blocked and so on but obviously you may have different ideas and be happy to hear them and be happy to discuss them and if there are any questions you would like to ask I should conclude by saying the European Parliament yesterday approved a resolution a cross-party resolution majority supporting the idea of a UN seat for the Palestinian state in the United Nations I think that is the lead which the member states perhaps might follow Thank you very much