Abbas Does Not Want to Negotiate with Israel; He Demands That Israel Concede

Martin Peretz
The New Republic
19 July '10

It is as clear as daylight, and my particular information with all the caveats and special emphases comes from the most respectable pro- Palestinian journalist there is. His name is Tobias Buck and he writes for the Financial Times where every piece published about the Jewish state--whose capital, in case you didn't know, is Tel Aviv--is jaundiced. Jaundiced as in exhibiting distaste and hostility.

Buck has a story in today's FT about the state of the talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. They are, as I've been suggesting for months they would be, going nowhere. George Mitchell hasn't even been doing much shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah where the established government and the proto-government are actually located. (Perhaps this is a prophecy of where the functional Palestinian seat of government will be since Jerusalem is--how shall we say?--already quite full of official buildings. I am sure, however, that any Israeli politician would make room for lots of Palestinian flags, especially, let's say, on the temple mount. This is not a joke.)

Anyway, Israel has made it clear again and again that it is if not positively eager it is surely ready for direct and open talks. The P.A. wanted remote negotiations, and George Mitchell obliged it with the hocus pocus of proximity talks. For nearly a hundred years this has been the preferred formula for Arab-Jewish attempts to solve their disputes. Surprise: it did not work this time either.

So what Abbas demands is that Israel accede in advance to returning to the 1949 armistice lines. This is actually what the formal dispute is all about. The Palestinians are returning to the geographical lines that Ehud Barak offered Yassir Arafat. Arafat rejected these.

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