Palestine Papers: PA trying to get rid of Netanyahu

Elder of Ziyon
06 February '11

Here is another theme of the "Palestine Papers" that The Guardian did not believe is newsworthy: The PA is using the negotiations - and refusal to negotiate - as a way to get rid of Netanyahu and to bring back Livni.

When Netanyahu first started forming a government, Saeb Erekat tried to use his supposed intransigence as a weapon to get the US to go against him. From a February 27, 2009 meeting with George Mitchell:

It seems they are moving towards a government with 65 seats. Livni told Netanyahu her conditions for coalition: two states and political negotiations. AM [Abu Mazen/Mahmoud Abbas] cannot demand less than Livni. We want to continue the political process and negotiations. We are committed to that. But if Israel doesn’t recognize the two-state solution and continues settlements, it will be the last nail in AM’s coffin if we send him to negotiate.

...If Netanyahu forms a government with a party that has 15 seats, with an official platform of ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Muslims and Christians who are Israeli citizens … if Barack Obama wants a policy of reconciliation with the Muslim and Arab world … with your kids dying all over the region.

You have a choice. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. You have either the cost-free way: pressure us to negotiate, which means AM negotiating with Netanyahu under continuing settlement and without recognition – this would be the last nail in AM’s coffin, or you have another choice: take the Annapolis statement: two states, and negotiations over all core issues. If the Israeli government doesn’t include in its mandate the two-states and negotiating on all issues including Jerusalem … [hands GM paper submitted to the EU via the Czechs] We are committed to peace and negotiations for two states, but we won’t engage without this.

Netanyahu will go to President Obama and tell him “Iran.” He will say he is committed. Then he will build settlements in E1 and elsewhere – like he did in Har Homa. You cannot be expected to demand less of Netanyahu than what Livni demanded.

In a later meeting with the Negotiations Support Unit, Erekat talks a little more frankly about his strategy with to split Obama from Netanyahu and get him to wholeheartedly take the Palestinian Arab side.

(Read full "Palestine Papers: PA trying to get rid of Netanyahu")

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