Haaretz
15 October '10
Has he crossed the Rubicon? And if he has, has he done so only intellectually or also mentally? Is it already possible to number Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among the good guys? And how will we know?
This political-media debate in Israel, endlessly repeated, suffers from a basic weakness: It relies, deliberately, on a baseless assumption that is never explicitly stated - that Israeli willingness for far-reaching concessions suffices to bring peace to Israel.
This assumption was tested twice in the past decade, and both times it proved false: Two Israeli prime ministers, from different parties, in 2000 and in 2008, offered far-reaching concessions to the leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which rejected their offers. So to dispel the harsh impression left by the string of failures that has followed the Oslo concessions, the professional peace processors offered localized excuses: Just give them another round of concessions, and everything will be fine.
But the heads of the PLO feel no need for excuses. In the months after the negotiations with prime minister Ehud Olmert failed, they offered a number of substantive reasons for this failure, which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen ) summed up with cruel simplicity: "The gaps were wide" (Washington Post, May 5, 2009 ).
A somewhat more detailed explanation was provided recently by United Arab List-Ta'al MK Ahmed Tibi (Haaretz, September 7, 2010 ): "[T]he maximum Olmert could offer in his day did not reach the minimum Abu Mazen and the Palestine Liberation Organization can accept." And knowing the PLO's positions, it is clear that these diplomatic observations are accurate and valid.
(Read full article)
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