Livni and Abu Alla Together

She repeatedly calls for two states, be he fails to utter those words publicly even once.


Rhonda Spivak
Israel Resource Review
18 July '10

JERUSALEM - Opposition leader Tzipi Livni, head of Israel’s Kadima party, shared a podium in English with former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei [Abu Alla] of Fatah at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel on July 11th, 2010.

This was the first time the two had met since they engaged in substantive talks on a weekly basis when Livni was Foreign Minister in Ehud Olmert’s government after the Annapolis conference.

Throughout her speech Livni repeatedly referred to the need for a “two state” solution and used the words “two states for two people” and similar phraseology, while Qurei, on the other hand, did not utter the words “ two states” or “two state solution” even once. In addition Livni spoke of the need to “divide” the land that is between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan River at several points in her remarks, but Qurei did not use similar terminology of “dividing” the land.

Livni and Qurei’s speeches were part of a conference titled “The Israeli-Palestinian Proximity Talks: Lessons from Past Negotiations,” which was organized by Hebrew University’s Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace in conjunction with the German based Konrad Adenaur Stiftung group.

While Qurei did refer to the Oslo Accords as “the most important historical breakthrough in the history of the conflict,” and also refereed to his negotiations with Livni after Annapolis as “serious negotiations”, once can not help but wonder why he chose not to utter the words “two-states” even once?

Is it possible he did not do so, because on the Palestinian street, more people are talking about “a one state solution,” or waiting to obtain all of ‘historic Palestine’, such that Fatah determined that was no point for it to waste any efforts on uttering “two states” when Livni is not even in power.

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