Hands off Abbas

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
12 August '10

We have no tangible proof that the White House had indeed applied brutal pressure on poor Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority’s teeter-tottering Ramallah half. This remains unsubstantiated. American officials haven’t confirmed news reports and derivative innuendo from both Israeli and Palestinian sources. But if we set aside our skepticism and assume, for argument’s sake, that Obama and crew did indeed twist Abbas’s arms, we ought to be outraged.

The very notion of dragging an unwilling interlocutor to the negotiating table should be unthinkable, certainly no cause for glee among Israelis.

This is akin to a shotgun wedding. However, it’s even less likely to lead to harmony than forced nuptials are to result in matrimonial bliss. We’ve been there, seen this.

TEN YEARS ago Bill Clinton had dragged a kicking and screaming Yasser Arafat to Camp David, where he also leaned on then-PM Ehud Barak to make egregious offers to reward Arafat for his “cooperation.”

To the amazement of both American and Israeli wishful-thinkers, Arafat spurned the outstretched hand and Israel’s mad magnanimity.

Unlike the Americans and Israelis, Arafat wasn’t out to end the dispute. That was the last thing on his priorities list. Indeed right at the top of said list was perpetuating and escalating the dispute. No sooner did the Camp David powwow flop, than Arafat unleashed his premeditated second intifada.

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