Didi Remez juxtaposes conflicting reports--Netanyahu's magnanimous offer of "“continuous direct one-on-one negotiations until white smoke is wafting ” while the Hebrew press tells quite another story. Maariv daily:
In the past weeks, Israeli representatives, including Netanyahu, have repeatedly rejected official documents that their Palestinian counterparts have tried to submit to them, with details of the Palestinian positions on all the core issues. The Israeli representatives are completely unwilling to discuss, read or touch these documents, not to speak of submitting an equivalent Israeli document with the Israeli positions…This completely contradicts the Israeli position, according to which everything is open for negotiation, and Netanyahu is willing to talk about all the core issues and go into a room with Abu Mazen in order to come out of it with an arrangement.
in the latest meeting that was held between the two negotiators, Dr. Saeb Erekat from the Palestinian side and Attorney Yitzhak Molcho from the Israeli side. The meeting was held in Washington a few weeks ago, in the presence of the American mediators. During the meeting, Erekat surprised Molcho, took an official booklet out of his briefcase bearing the logo of the Palestinian Authority and tried to hand it to Molcho. When the Israeli inquired as to the content of the booklet, Erekat said that this was, in effect, the detailed and updated Palestinian peace plan, with the detailed Palestinian positions on all the core issues. Molcho refused to take the booklet or examine it. According to sources who are informed about what took place there, he said to Erekat, and to the Americans, that he could not touch the Palestinian booklet, read it or take it, because as soon as he would do so, “the government will fall.”
grazie mille, annie. nothing like that exchange to set your blood boiling. they are not even willing to negotiate with Fatah. what more does one need to know.
of course not, bibi’s gov has no intention of negotiating. they are repetitive liars. lie rinse wash and repeat. over and over and over.
this is all a grand charad with them claiming the palestinians are holding things up. nothing could be farther from the truth.
Oh, they insist on “negotiating” but this raises the question of what negotiation means when it obviously doesn’t include reading the other side’s proposals.
Negotiation BYahoo-style is clearly a euphemist for unconditional surrender. Abbas is supposed to sign an agreement giving Israel whatever it wants, and then he’ll get to see what it says.
Once again, this shows the toothlessness of the Americans as an “honest broker” in the so-called “process.” Obama is a wimp of titanic proportions, and the once-great George Mitchell is a eunich. A truly honest broker would accept the Palestinian papers and use it as a starting point.
Doesn’t this also make the kefluffle about settlement freeze a non-issue? In other words, not only have the Palestinians shown up at the negotiation table, they’ve actually begun negotiating in good faith without preconditions. So why did Dennis Ross have Obama doing circus tricks about freezing the settlements when Erekat was already moving forward?
Also, why would Erekat agree to not discuss the incident with the media? It would be a gamechanger.
It’s way too late for a settlement freeze. YESHA is like late stage capitalism. It is growth or collapse. The latter is inevitable.
Sounds like BS to me. Let’s have Erikat publish his little booklet and let us see what the Palestinians propose.
You guys never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, do you? Heh.
Why doesn’t BYahoo publish his proposals and let us see what kind of Bantustans he has in mind.
Israel has painted itself into a corner. The only way out is another war. Bomb the sh*t out of Gaza and then maybe the Palestinians will give up.
Israeli diplomacy is out to lunch.
Bradley Burston posted a great article for Haaretz this morning.
link to haaretz.com
Out to lunch? I think Israeli diplomacy missed Noah’s ark, actually.
thanks for the link. a beautiful bit of satire.
more (unintended) satire from another Ha’aretz article, the ‘only democracy in the ME’ chugging along smoothly:
The High Court of Justice ruled Thursday that public bus companies could continue the practice of gender segregation on dozens of lines serving the ultra-Orthodox sector, as long as there is no coercion or violence involved.
. . .
The Mehadrin lines serve mostly ultra-Orthodox communities, but are open for all public commuters. A petition deeming the segregated lines illegal was filed in 2007, after several women complained of being verbally and physically assaulted for failing to sit in the back of the bus.
“Israeli diplomacy is out to lunch.”
You are right. But the problem goes deeper than that.
What is lacking on the Israeli side is not merely the skill to negotiate a just peace, but the will.
little booklet
that’s redundant, but i’ll assume you just meant to demean israel’s only potential ‘partner in peace’. and what about the article sounds like ‘BS’? do you think netanyahu’s government could survive its public pronouncement of even a partial freeze on settlements, the most meager of concessions?
What does it mean if Molcho’s claim that ‘the government will fall’ [if it enters negotiations with Palestinians] is taken at face value?
It rather reminds me of the stance taken by the Kuomintang government on Taiwan during the first four decades after the communist revolution on the mainland. Its official position, repeated like a mantra, was ‘no contact, no compromise, no negotiations’ with the communists.
Taiwanese maps of the era showed the Chinese mainland in the same color as the island, under the theory that the mainland was ‘temporarily’ under rebel control (much as the more fanatical zionoids allege that ‘Judea and Samaria are belong to us!’). To negotiate with the communists, they reckoned, could only lead to giving away land which already belonged to them.
Practically, though, with retaking territory by force not an option, the bans on direct travel, trade and communication have long since been dropped. During the bygone era of ‘generalissimo’ politics, the hard line position had much to do with posturing and ego. Which could well the case with a preening martinet like Netanyahu as well.
The Process is prob Bibi’s end game. He’s happy to keep things chugging along, taking bits of land here and there. To reach an end game with a viable Palestinian state is unimaginable for him.
Did the US “mediator” take a copy of the booklet?