Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday called on the Palestinian Authority to “stop wasting time talking about how to enter the peace process,” following a failed meeting between the U.S. Mideast envoy and the Palestinian Authority president regarding a restart of peace talks.
Wasting time? Who’s been wasting time since 1967? Who’s had numerous opportunties to negotiate an end to this conflict but has stalled at every juncture? Who to this day ignores viable peace initiatives like the Saudi Plan or the Geneva Initiative?
Have the Palestinians made their share of missteps? Certainly. But for this guy to get up there and act as if he’s bent out of shape because the Palestinians are wasting precious time instead of entering negotiations is the height of audacity–and it ain’t the audacity of hope either.
The audacity continues in this self-serving statement:
“The Palestinian Authority are the ones that are preventing the re-launch of the peace process with their preconditions that they have never asked before from any previous Israeli government,” the statement said. “The Prime Minister calls on the Palestinian Authority to sit at the negotiating table and discuss ways to promote security, peace, and prosperity for the two people.”
Abbas’ “condition” is a real settlement freeze. Is Bibi saying this was never a demand of the PA? No, because it has always been one. Is he saying it has never been a precondition of previous negotiations? Perhaps. But look at the wasted year Abbas spent negotiating with Olmert when he offered no preconditions. What did he get out of it? A warmed over Clinton parameters offer with no provision for resolving Jerusalem or the Right of Return. Maybe Abbas got wise and realized when you demand nothing from the Israelis you get nothing.
Anyway, Bibi, stop grandstanding. It only makes you look like the emperor with no clothes, and the sight ain’t pretty.
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The late Dr. Robert John, the author of “The Palestine Diaries”, always told me that: “the Palestinians are too nice!”
Here is joke with some truth:
A little old Jewish lady sold pretzels for 25 cents each, next to an IDF checkpoint. Every day a young Palestinian man would leave for work and had to pass through the IDF checkpoint. As he passed the pretzel stand, he would leave her a quarter, but never take a pretzel.
And this went on for more then 3 years. The two of them never spoke. One day, as the young man passed the old lady’s stand and left his quarter as usual, the pretzel lady spoke to him.
“Sir, I appreciate your business. You are a good customer, but I have to tell you that the pretzel price has gone up to 35 cents.”
Chutzpah, indeed.
Not that I have any faith in the “peace process,” but what always galls me is that Israel always asks for “concessions” from the Palestinians, like a thief asking for a handout while he picks your pocket. Netanyahu’s amazing stunts regarding the “settlement freeze” will make him go down in history as one of the greatest of all of Israel’s bullsh*t artists. While settlements continue to be built, he whines about how Abbas won’t return to negotiations, and he blabbers about how the Palestinians won’t offer any “concessions.”
Chutzpah, indeed.