Steven Stotsky
CAMERA/Middle East Issues
18 January '10
Throughout his years as a commentator on the Israeli-Arab conflict, Henry Siegman has consistently towed the Palestinian line that Israel is to blame for the failure to resolve the conflict. In a Jan. 25, 2010 article in The Nation, Siegman essentially promotes the current strategy of the Palestinian Authority leadership to bypass a negotiated settlement with Israel in favor of "forceful outside intervention." The purpose of this strategy is to compel Israel to accept a Palestinian state under the conditions demanded by the Palestinians.
That Siegman would look approvingly upon the adoption of coercive tactics against Israel is no surprise. He has long painted Israel as recalcitrant and unworthy of support. At the same time, Siegman is an apologist for Palestinian rejectionism. When questioned in 2004 about former PLO leader Yasser Arafat's legacy of condoning terrorism, Siegman could only offer that "his mistakes played into the hands of those in Israel" like Ariel Sharon to deny Palestinian statehood that the United Nations affirmed in 1947. He failed to mention that it was the Palestinian leadership itself that rejected the UN resolution to establish both a Jewish and Arab state in Palestine. He then went on to equate Palestinian terrorism with the actions of Israel's founders.
Siegman remains in high demand among media outfits that consistently favor the Palestinians despite his poor record of assessing the situation. In 2004, after being asked if there was any possibility that Hamas would rule the Palestinians, he assured that there was "no likelihood of Hamas forming a government." Then, after Hamas won control of the Gaza Strip in 2006, Siegman stumped for American engagement with the hardline Islamist group, insisting that this "presents possibilities for a peace agreement that were simply impossible with a Palestinian authority that was run by Fatah." Once that gambit failed and with Hamas's increasing diplomatic isolation, Siegman took up the new Fatah strategy to unilaterally adopt Palestinian demands against Israel's objections.
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