A demand for a new annihilation cannot be a basis for negotiations. Common sense from Vuk Draskovic. By Hilary Leila Krieger and Tovah Lazaroff in the Jerusalem Post (thanks to Looney Tunes):
The main obstacle to peace in the Middle East is the “stubborn refusal” of certain Arab countries and organizations to recognize Israel’s right to exist, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic declared Sunday while on a visit to Jerusalem, which he called the capital of Israel.
“I fully understand the fear of the Jewish people, because refusal to recognize the existence of Israel must remind Jews of the Holocaust and seem a demand for a new annihilation, and this couldn’t be a basis for negotiations,” Draskovic told The Jerusalem Post.
Draskovic said he could well understand the importance of recognition for Israel since the lack of recognition of Serbia’s territorial claims to Kosovo form the central cause of the conflict there between the province’s Albanian Muslim majority and its tiny Serbian minority….
“Many newspapers are writing that Israel is terrorist No. 1 in the Middle East [and] that Serbia is terrorist No. 1 in the Balkans. We’re not. This is the wrong perception of us – both of us,” he said. “We have to support each other.”…
If there is any question about Israel’s right to exist, the Serbian foreign minister said, then the quartet states “also have no right to exist, because the historical roots of all of them are here.”
Draskovic, a devout Christian, will be visiting Jerusalem’s Old City, Nazareth and Galilee during his three-day stay. He will meet with representatives of the Orthodox Church but not Palestinian officials.