Bill Clinton warns Israel is ‘isolating itself’

Former US president Bill Clinton is warning Israel about “isolating itself from world opinion” due to the lack of a “viable” peace process with the Palestinians.

More than 220 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have died during 10 days of Israeli bombing and shelling in Gaza in retaliation for over 1,300 rocket attacks on Israeli population centers by Hamas fighters.

“Over the long run it is not good for Israel to keep isolating itself from world opinion because of the absence of a viable peace process,” Clinton tells the Indian NDTV news channel on Wednesday.

“In the short to medium term, Hamas can inflict terrible public relations damage on Israel by forcing it to kill Palestinian civilians to counter Hamas,” he adds.

Hamas has a “strategy designed to force Israel to kill their own (Palestinian) civilians so the rest of the world will condemn them [Israel],” while Israel couldn’t “look like fools” by not responding to the heavy missile attacks.

Clinton, who pushed hard while president for a comprehensive peace deal at a Camp David summit in 2000, urges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resume serious talks.

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu could and should make a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians,” he says, adding that he believes 60 percent of Israelis would support him.

The objective of all should be “a peace process that gets Israel security recognition and peace and that gets the Palestinians their state,” he says.

— AFP and Times of Israel staff