Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Palestinians make peac e impossible
Since he assumed office a year ago, Benjamin Netanyahu has (1) formally offered immediate negotiations with the Palestinians without preconditions, (2) affirmed Israeli support for a two-state solution, (3) declared a moratorium on new West Bank building — and has been met with a total refusal by the peace-partner Palestinians to begin even “proximity talks,” absent a concession that they know that neither Netanyahu nor any other Israeli prime minister will make.
the PA
1. does not state their 2 states would include a Jewish state. Abbas has sai the opposite
2. It was the PA, not Hamas that named the square for the mass murderer
3 The PA does not speak for Gaza
4. The PA school curriculum states all of Israel is occupied territory.
5. The PA denby Israel had 2 temples on the mount, even as they fear a third one. Go figure
the PA
1. does not state their 2 states would include a Jewish state. Abbas has sai the opposite
2. It was the PA, not Hamas that named the square for the mass murderer
3 The PA does not speak for Gaza
4. The PA school curriculum states all of Israel is occupied territory.
5. The PA denby Israel had 2 temples on the mount, even as they fear a third one. Go figure
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
PA, not Hamas,names square for mass murderer
the municipality that named the square after the terrorist is run by Hamas. But in fact it has been the PA and Mahmoud Abbas, not Hamas, who have been leading the Palestinians in glorifying Dalal Mughrabi, the terrorist bus hijacker who was responsible for the killing of 37 civilians in 1978. Palestinian Media Watch has documented 15 examples of Mughrabi veneration by Abbas, Fatah, and the PA in recent years. When Hamas is condemned for the terror glorification while it is Abbas and the PA who are guilty, the message to the Palestinian leadership is that they can continue with their incitement to hatred and violence, and no one will call them to account. (Jerusalem Post)
Palestinian demands delay peace talks
Netanyahu: PA Demands Could Put Talks on Hold for a Year
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he feared Middle East peace talks could be delayed for another year unless Palestinians dropped their demand for a full settlement freeze. "We must not be trapped by an illogical and unreasonable demand," Netanyahu told Congressional leaders during a Washington visit. Israeli officials dismissed Palestinian concerns over Israeli building in and near east Jerusalem. They said even Palestinians understood that apartment blocs Israel erected would not be dismantled in any future peace deal. (Ynet News)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he feared Middle East peace talks could be delayed for another year unless Palestinians dropped their demand for a full settlement freeze. "We must not be trapped by an illogical and unreasonable demand," Netanyahu told Congressional leaders during a Washington visit. Israeli officials dismissed Palestinian concerns over Israeli building in and near east Jerusalem. They said even Palestinians understood that apartment blocs Israel erected would not be dismantled in any future peace deal. (Ynet News)
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Jennifer Rubin-they won't meet face to face
if, in fact, a civil society and change of heart from the Palestinians are preconditions for peace, what then is the point of endless peace conferences and negotiations, especially considering the Palestinians’ lack of authority and of will to make any deal, let alone a comprehensive peace? And — indeed — one wonders whether in all the drama and the fights preceding those talks, the cause of building those institutions and the transition in Palestinian mindset is not set back, rather than advanced. What are we accomplishing, especially when the Palestinians are not even willing to meet face-to-face? Other than employing George Mitchell, keeping Hillary busy, and maintaining Obama’s image as a great “peace maker,” it is hard to fathom
Abbas does not want peace
A familiar obstacle to Mideast peace: Mahmoud Abbas
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, March 22, 2010; A17
U.S. diplomats had labored for months to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace negotiations. Just as it appeared they had succeeded, there came a provocation: Israel took a step toward expanding a Jewish settlement in Jerusalem. Headlines appeared around the globe; the European Union protested; Palestinians cried foul. Some threatened to boycott the new talks unless the decision were reversed.
No, Joe Biden was not in Jerusalem that week of December 2007 -- he was busy running for president. Instead it was Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state of the Bush administration, who managed that mini-crisis. How she did so, and what followed, offers some lessons for her successors in the Obama administration -- who are proving to be remarkably slow learners when it comes to Middle East peacemaking.
Rice and her old boss have been much maligned for failing to pursue Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during most of their time in office. But during her last two years as secretary of state, Rice doggedly pushed for a final settlement -- and, in the end, arguably came as close as any U.S. broker before her. She was fortunate in having, in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a partner who was more interested in striking a deal than is Binyamin Netanyahu. But she also studied closely the history of previous peace processes, which maybe explains why she avoided some of President Obama's flagrant mistakes.
As Rice might have told the current White House, lesson No. 1 from history is that there will always be a provocation that threatens to derail peace talks -- before they start, when they start and regularly thereafter. Israeli settlement announcements are among the most common, along with the orchestration by West Bank Palestinians of violent demonstrations and attacks from Gaza by Hamas. The Obama administration saw all three in the past 10 days: It went ballistic over one and barely registered the other two.
The trick is not to let the provocation become the center of attention but instead to insist on proceeding with the negotiations. That is what Rice did when news of the Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa broke. In public, she delivered a clear but relatively mild statement saying the United States had opposed the settlement "from the very beginning." In private, she told Olmert: Don't let that happen again. For Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the message was equally blunt: You can come to the table and negotiate a border for a Palestinian state, making settlements irrelevant. Or you can boycott and let the building continue.
Not surprisingly, Abbas -- who has taken Obama's public assault on Israel as a cue to boycott -- showed up for Rice's negotiations. The Bush administration privately offered him an assurance: Any Israeli settlement construction that took place during the talks would not be accepted by the United States when it came time to draw a final Israeli border. On settlements, Rice adopted a pragmatic guideline she called the "Google Earth test": A settlement that visibly expanded was a problem; one that remained within its existing territorial boundary was not.
The virtue of all this is that Rice got the Israelis and Palestinians talking not about settlements but what they really needed to be discussing -- the future Palestine. Olmert and Abbas went over everything: the border, the future of Jerusalem and its holy sites, security arrangements, how to handle the millions of Palestinian refugees still living in camps. Privately, they agreed on a lot. Eventually, Olmert presented Abbas with a detailed plan for a final settlement -- one that, in its concessions to Palestinian demands, went beyond anything either Israel or the United States had ever put forward. Among other things it mandated a Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem and would have allowed 10,000 refugees to return to Israel.
That's when Rice learned another lesson the new administration seems not to have picked up: This Palestinian leadership has trouble saying "yes." Confronted with a draft deal that would have been cheered by most of the world, Abbas balked. He refused to sign on; he refused to present a counteroffer. Rice and Bush implored him to join Olmert at the White House for a summit. Olmert would present his plan to Bush, and Abbas would say only that he found it worth discussing. The Palestinian president refused.
Behind Obama's deliberate fight with Netanyahu last week seemed to lie a calculation that a peace settlement will require the United States to bend or break Israel's current government. That might be true; it's almost certainly the case that Netanyahu would not accept the terms that Olmert offered. But behind that obstacle lies another -- the recalcitrance of Abbas -- that the new administration has been slow to recognize. It's all there in the annals of Rice's diplomacy -- but then, that was the Bush administration.
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, March 22, 2010; A17
U.S. diplomats had labored for months to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace negotiations. Just as it appeared they had succeeded, there came a provocation: Israel took a step toward expanding a Jewish settlement in Jerusalem. Headlines appeared around the globe; the European Union protested; Palestinians cried foul. Some threatened to boycott the new talks unless the decision were reversed.
No, Joe Biden was not in Jerusalem that week of December 2007 -- he was busy running for president. Instead it was Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state of the Bush administration, who managed that mini-crisis. How she did so, and what followed, offers some lessons for her successors in the Obama administration -- who are proving to be remarkably slow learners when it comes to Middle East peacemaking.
Rice and her old boss have been much maligned for failing to pursue Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during most of their time in office. But during her last two years as secretary of state, Rice doggedly pushed for a final settlement -- and, in the end, arguably came as close as any U.S. broker before her. She was fortunate in having, in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a partner who was more interested in striking a deal than is Binyamin Netanyahu. But she also studied closely the history of previous peace processes, which maybe explains why she avoided some of President Obama's flagrant mistakes.
As Rice might have told the current White House, lesson No. 1 from history is that there will always be a provocation that threatens to derail peace talks -- before they start, when they start and regularly thereafter. Israeli settlement announcements are among the most common, along with the orchestration by West Bank Palestinians of violent demonstrations and attacks from Gaza by Hamas. The Obama administration saw all three in the past 10 days: It went ballistic over one and barely registered the other two.
The trick is not to let the provocation become the center of attention but instead to insist on proceeding with the negotiations. That is what Rice did when news of the Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa broke. In public, she delivered a clear but relatively mild statement saying the United States had opposed the settlement "from the very beginning." In private, she told Olmert: Don't let that happen again. For Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the message was equally blunt: You can come to the table and negotiate a border for a Palestinian state, making settlements irrelevant. Or you can boycott and let the building continue.
Not surprisingly, Abbas -- who has taken Obama's public assault on Israel as a cue to boycott -- showed up for Rice's negotiations. The Bush administration privately offered him an assurance: Any Israeli settlement construction that took place during the talks would not be accepted by the United States when it came time to draw a final Israeli border. On settlements, Rice adopted a pragmatic guideline she called the "Google Earth test": A settlement that visibly expanded was a problem; one that remained within its existing territorial boundary was not.
The virtue of all this is that Rice got the Israelis and Palestinians talking not about settlements but what they really needed to be discussing -- the future Palestine. Olmert and Abbas went over everything: the border, the future of Jerusalem and its holy sites, security arrangements, how to handle the millions of Palestinian refugees still living in camps. Privately, they agreed on a lot. Eventually, Olmert presented Abbas with a detailed plan for a final settlement -- one that, in its concessions to Palestinian demands, went beyond anything either Israel or the United States had ever put forward. Among other things it mandated a Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem and would have allowed 10,000 refugees to return to Israel.
That's when Rice learned another lesson the new administration seems not to have picked up: This Palestinian leadership has trouble saying "yes." Confronted with a draft deal that would have been cheered by most of the world, Abbas balked. He refused to sign on; he refused to present a counteroffer. Rice and Bush implored him to join Olmert at the White House for a summit. Olmert would present his plan to Bush, and Abbas would say only that he found it worth discussing. The Palestinian president refused.
Behind Obama's deliberate fight with Netanyahu last week seemed to lie a calculation that a peace settlement will require the United States to bend or break Israel's current government. That might be true; it's almost certainly the case that Netanyahu would not accept the terms that Olmert offered. But behind that obstacle lies another -- the recalcitrance of Abbas -- that the new administration has been slow to recognize. It's all there in the annals of Rice's diplomacy -- but then, that was the Bush administration.
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