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 8:03 AM, May 24, 2012 • By ELLIOTT ABRAMSThe belief that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is inches away or perhaps only one long negotiating session away never dies. Not even 64 years after the birth of the state of Israel and 45 years after Israel’s conquest of Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem in 1967.
This delusion is fed by leaders who have reasons for propagating it, and the latest is former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. Driven from office by a combination of Israeli disappointment with the results of the 2006 war in Lebanon, over which he presided, and corruption accusations (but no convictions in any of the cases yet), Olmert is trying to defend his reputation. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv this month he expanded on some previous claims, and his words were widely discussed. (See for example here and here.)
Here is Olmert, describing his negotiations with PLO chairman and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas:
I was within touching distance of a peace agreement. The Palestinians never rejected my offers. And even if on the thousandth time there are people who are going to try to say that they rejected my offers, the reality was otherwise. They didn't accept them, and there's a difference. They didn't accept them because the negotiations weren't concluded; they were on the verge of conclusion....The gaps were very small, we had already reached the very last final stretch.
This account is plain wrong. At the time, back in 2008, Olmert explained his proposal to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In her memoir No Higher Honor, she recounts what happened:
I worried that there might never be another chance like this one…. to have an Israeli prime minister on record offering those remarkable elements and a Palestinian president accepting them would have pushed the peace process to a new level. Abbas refused. We had one last chance. The two leaders came separately in November and December to say good-bye. The President took Abbas into the Oval Office alone and appealed to him to reconsider. The Palestinian stood firm, and the idea died.
Then there is the Palestinian version, which was offered in early 2009 by the chief Palestinian negotiator then and now, Saeb Erekat. In a debate televised on Al Jazeera, Erekat went on at length and explained that there was really no chance Abbas was going to accept Olmert’s proposal:
The Palestinian negotiators could have given in in 1994, 1998, or 2000, and two months ago, brother Abu Mazen could have accepted a proposal that talked about Jerusalem and almost 100% of the West Bank....Let me recount two historical events, even if I am revealing a secret. On July 23, 2000, at his meeting with President Arafat in Camp David, President Clinton said: 'You will be the first president of a Palestinian state, within the 1967 borders - give or take, considering the land swap - and East Jerusalem will be the capital of the Palestinian state, but we want you, as a religious man, to acknowledge that the Temple of Solomon is located underneath the Haram Al-Sharif.' Yasser Arafat said to Clinton defiantly: 'I will not be a traitor. Someone will come to liberate it after 10, 50, or 100 years. Jerusalem will be nothing but the capital of the Palestinian state, and there is nothing underneath or above the Haram Al-Sharif except for Allah.' That is why Yasser Arafat was besieged, and that is why he was killed unjustly.
In November 2008…Olmert offered the 1967 borders, but said: 'We will take 6.5% of the West Bank, and give in return 5.8% from the 1948 lands, and the 0.7% will constitute the safe passage, and East Jerusalem will be the capital, but there is a problem with the Haram and with what they called the Holy Basin.' Abu Mazen too answered with defiance, saying: 'I am not in a marketplace or a bazaar. I came to demarcate the borders of Palestine - the June 4, 1967 borders - without detracting a single inch, and without detracting a single stone from Jerusalem, or from the holy Christian and Muslim places.' This is why the Palestinian negotiators did not sign…
Read more... 9:06 AM, Apr 28, 2012 • By MARK TOOLEYLast Sunday, CBS’s 60 Minutes broadcast “Christians of the Holy Land,” by Bob Simon, largely blaming Israel for an exodus of Christians from the Holy Land. The showing coincides with a growing international campaign to portray Israel as anti-Christian, showcasing Palestinian Christians as evidence.
Read more... 1:33 PM, Apr 23, 2012 • By ELLIOTT ABRAMSThe situation of the Palestinian Authority is grim. Its diplomatic offensive against Israel in the United Nations did not win it statehood, there are no serious negotiations with Israel because the PA refuses them, Hamas controls Gaza, and Palestinian elections keep getting postponed despite the “Arab Spring” and the wave of elections in Arab countries. Internally, relations between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad were recently so poor that for several days Abbas apparently refused even to speak to Fayyad.
Read more... 10:11 AM, Apr 23, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPERFormer Palestinian intelligence official Muhammad Abu Shahala has reportedly been sentenced to death by the Palestinian Authority for selling a Hebron home to Jews. In response, Jewish officials from the community in Hebron are calling for international officials now to get involved—in order to save Abu Shahala’s life.
Read more... 12:00 AM, Apr 16, 2012 • By ELLIOTT ABRAMSThe chairman of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas (who is also president of the Palestinian Authority), has drafted a letter to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for delivery this week. What is apparently the current state of the draft is published by Times of Israel, a terrific new web site about the Middle East.
Read more... 4:01 PM, Mar 27, 2012 • By JONATHAN SCHANZERThe first flotilla in 2010 ended in a bloodbath on the high seas, when the Israeli navy intercepted Islamists and activists seeking to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. The second flotilla fizzled, when international lawyers prevented a second round of boats from embarking on another ill-fated mission in 2011.
Read more... 9:01 AM, Feb 1, 2012 • By ELLIOTT ABRAMSOn January 29, Israel’s cabinet approved new “housing benefits” for “national priority areas.” The exact application of these benefits to communities in the West Bank is unclear, to me at least, but the cabinet statement says, “The decision is designed to encourage positive migration to the communities.” News reports suggest that of the 557 communities eligible for the aid, 70 are in the West Bank: “The list of qualifying settlements include major enclaves that would likely remain in Israeli hands under a peace deal. But most are located deep inside the West Bank and likely would have to be dismantled.”
Read more... 1:22 PM, Dec 27, 2011 • By DANIEL HALPERWith all this talk about how Israel needs to get to the "damn table," one could be forgiven for forgetting about the nature of the other side.
Read more... 9:02 AM, Dec 21, 2011 • By JONATHAN SCHANZERPalestinian news sources reported earlier this month that Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised $300 million to the Gaza-based terrorist organization Hamas. If true, this pledge would cover nearly half of Hamas’s reported $769 million budget next year, and would make Turkey its primary benefactor.
Read more... 5:00 PM, Dec 16, 2011 • By ELLIOTT ABRAMSOn November 29th the Icelandic parliament voted to recognize Palestine as a state. Yesterday, a ceremony was held in Reykjavik in the presence of the Icelandic and PLO foreign ministers.
Read more... 12:09 PM, Nov 11, 2011 • By DANIEL HALPERThe Anti-Defamation League's latest national poll finds broad support for military action to prevent nuclear armed Iran.
Regarding Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, Americans support Israeli military action to prevent it by 57%-31%, and US military action by 50%-44%.
Read more... 3:27 PM, Nov 8, 2011 • By JONATHAN SCHANZERIn a move that should startle members of Congress, a Palestinian sovereign wealth fund that has long received American taxpayer support will soon begin building houses for convicted members of terrorist organizations.
Read more... 11:22 AM, Nov 5, 2011 • By ELLIOTT ABRAMSThis weekend marks another milestone in the history of intellectual dishonesty, for the so-called “Russell Tribunal on Palestine” meets in Cape Town, South Africa on November 5th and 6th.
Read more... 2:05 PM, Nov 3, 2011 • By DANIEL HALPEREarlier this week, the majority of member states of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)—whose self-stated mission is “to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information”—voted to accept the Palestinians’ application to become the newest member of the organization. The vote was not even close—107 voted in favor of the Palestinians, while 14 states voted against (52 abstained)—for “Palestine [to become] the 195th full member of UNESCO,” as the New York Times reported.
Read more...
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