This one sure seems like a no-brainer.
1. Jordan’s King Abdullah attended Obama’s peace talk photo-op in D.C. last week, then he went back home and visited Damascus and the two countries’ leaders called on Israel to withdraw from all the lands taken in ’67 in order to have peace with its neighbors.
Abdullah and Assad "emphasized that resolving the Palestinian- Israeli conflict on the basis of the two-state vision requires the regaining of all Arab rights in accordance with … the Arab peace initiative," the statement said.
2. Longtime PLO official Afif Safieh says the same thing at Politico:
Truth be told, I never once felt, during the past two decades, that peace might be at hand. Throughout, our negotiating teams faced deliberate Israeli ambiguity about the final outcome and a lack of commitment to the 1967 boundaries. Ehud Barak’s “generous offer” at Camp David in 2000 wanted to keep the Jordan Valley as a so-called security zone, as well as almost all of Jerusalem and the major settlement blocs that deliberately fragment the West Bank into disconnected Bantustans and that are strategically situated on our water aquifers — all the while rejecting any responsibility for the Palestinian refugees.
…So where do we go from here? There has been an Arab peace plan on the table since 2002 that offers a comprehensive peace in exchange for withdrawal to the 1967 borders and a just and agreed-upon resolution for Palestinian refugees. As Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has noted, this would bring Israel not only a two-state solution but a 57-state solution because it is also supported by the entire Muslim world. Israel has been saying for decades that it is looking for acceptance and legitimacy. Well, here it is.
I don’t understand this. You’d think this was the only path forward for Israel. But it can’t take it, because it would tear the society apart? But holding the territories, won’t that destroy Israel?
3. Rob Malley on Al Jazeera explains: There does not exist an Israeli gov’t, even with leftwinger Yossi Beilin as Prime Minister, that could freeze settlements. That coalition doesn’t exist.
Israel really is on a self-destructive course…
