An American diplomat is quoted in today's Yediot Ahronot as saying that the difference between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas is that the Israeli prime minister wants negotiations without a solution to the conflict, while the Palestinian president wants a solution without negotiations. Sounds like an accurate assessment to me.
Now we have the negative half of each one of the leaders' wishes: no negotiations and no solution. Isn't that just great? Both leaders are unwilling to copromise. Netanyahu wants talks that will lead nowhere and to no concessions on Israel's part. Abbas just wants the world community to adopt the Palestinians' favored solution (all of East Jerusalem, including the Wailing Wall, as Palestine's capital; return exactly to the 1967 borders; and the right of return for Palestinian refugees) and to impose it on Israel.
With leaders like these, things will go downhill very quickly.
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"[...] the difference between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas is that the Israeli prime minister wants negotiations without a solution to the conflict, while the Palestinian president wants a solution without negotiations."
ReplyDeleteI don't think that really works the way you see it. It seems to me the PA in general is also more interested in self-preservation than in doing the right thing for its people. Both sides are locked into a status quo for different reasons: the PA's main raison-d'être is the peace process: it prolongs, legitimises even, its existence and the material trappings that go with it. And as long as the PA remains an ineffective negotiator, Hamas will continue to be popular as an 'alternative'.
Take for instance Abbas' shameful initial stance on Goldstone: he made that concession without getting even the slightest thing in return (of course he back-pedaled later). With 'enemies' like that Israel doesn't even need friends!
And it's all very convenient for Israel's morally bankrupt leadership: an Internationally shunned government in Gaza (despite their not-so-new stance on a pre-1967 based State) and an incompetent PA, sucking up to Israel and the US. No wonder Bibi isn't willing to budge even an inch on the settlements...
I think Abbas is just generally incompetent without sucking up to Israel and the United States. I think that his initial decision on the Goldstone report was either him trying to pick his battles (maybe he preferred to fight over a settlement freeze) or that he didn't want to fight for Hamas - but he wasn't taking Israel's side.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we both agree the two governments suck and aren't doing anything to get us closer to a solution. What exactly causes this "suckiness" isn't very clear-cut.