Obama's Mideast Peace Process: New Letter Threatening Pressure On Abbas Is Meaningless

Daled Amos
01 August '10

Back in March, the very fact that Abbas agreed to the Proximity Talks was itself seen as Abbas giving into pressure. At the time, Herb Keinon wrote in the Jerusalem Post:

So when Abbas said for months and months that he would not enter into negotiations with Israel unless and until there was a full settlement freeze, including east Jerusalem, it seemed this was a firm Palestinian red line – not one of those pliable Israeli ones – and that he meant what he said.

Well, now we see the Palestinians can also move red lines, which is worth noting as some kind of talks resume.

Equally important is to understand that the reason Abbas was willing to move his red line was because he came under intense pressure from the US, certain elements inside the EU, and from Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan to start talks, even though all his conditions were not met.

The valuable lesson here: The Palestinians, too, and not only Israel, are susceptible to pressure.

However, in the time since then, we have seen that this was a false alarm. After all, was Abbas 'talking' with Netanyahu through Mitchell really a concession? Besides, just what movement has there been during the Proximity Talks since they first started?

Zero. A. Big. Fat. Zero.

So, when Abbas went to the Arab League to get his refusal to deal face-to-face with Netanyahu rubber stamped, Obama applied pressure:

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