AMMAN, Jan 3, 2012 (AFP)
I was wondering how our media would spin the Israeli-Palestinian-Quartet talks in Amman on Tuesday, and then the Editorial Board at the Washington Post delivered. They opened with a very loud bang, “SOMETHING SURPRISING happened Tuesday in a Middle East diplomatic landscape”–and then proceeded to digress:
Mr. Abbas dispatched his negotiator to Tuesday’s meeting to avoid being blamed by the Quartet for causing the stillbirth of its latest peace plan. But his disinterest in dealing with Mr. Netanyahu is manifest in his continuing preconditions for formal negotiations, including a freeze on all Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The Palestinian leadership says it is merely waiting for Jan. 26, which according to its interpretation of the Quartet plan is a deadline for each side to submit proposals on the borders and security of a future Palestinian state. Israel, for its part, is still waiting for Palestinians to meet the Quartet’s requirement of unconditional negotiations. At best, the informal talks could be a way around this impasse.
Why does the Washington Post blatantly carry water for Israel with this framing? Notice how it failed to mention that Abbas long ago turned in the P.A. proposal for borders and security to the Quartet (back in November). Notice how they did not mention that Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat presented those proposals to his Israeli counterpart, Yitzhak Molcho, in Amman Tuesday? Notice how the Quartet’s request for proposals turned into ‘the Palestinian leadership’s interpretation‘ of the Quartet’s request?
It’s another hasbara snow job. And then this:
Netanyahu could help by matching the Palestinian proposal with one of his own.
If he doesn’t, the Palestinian Authority will probably renew a self-defeating international diplomatic offensive against Israel……Mr. Abbas’s next steps reportedly could include another attempt to have the Security Council censure Israel’s settlement construction, which would succeed only in embarrassing the Obama administration.
It may succeed in doing just a little bit more than that. Are we supposed to be doing somersaults because the WaPo actually mentioned in the very last paragraph that Netanyahu has done nothing and “Israel recently moved ahead on thousands of new housing units in the settlements around Jerusalem”.
This is how the grownups do it (my bold):
Abbas told reporters earlier yesterday in the West Bank city of Ramallah that he may take “harsh” action if the talks with Israel don’t lead to a settlement freeze by Jan. 26, the date set by the Quartet for the two sides to submit proposals on security arrangements and a final border between them.
“We will discuss and study and decide what to do after the 26th,” Abbas told reporters at a ceremony to open a legal studies center in Ramallah. “So far, I cannot reveal what the measures are because they are not ready yet, but we will take measures that might be harsh.”.
Yes, and in your world, it’s spin if the Palestinians are criticized in any way.
Unfortunately Annie the Quartet did call in its last statement for the two sides to get round that famous table “without delay or preconditions” [ Jerusalem Post Quartet again calls for resumption of direct talks. 15-12-2011] the PA are making rods for their own backs again by meeting with the Israelis, before telling both them and the Quartet, no meetings until past agreements on settlements have been observed and future meetings must be based on International Law, the Palestinians must realise the Quartet is only taking the path of least resistance here, and when they see how the PA folds quicker than a chinese laundry, as they have done in the past, this is not unexpected
Maybe I am being too cynical, Annie you are right about the Quartet and the proposals but the aim of the Quartet and US/ Israel is to get the PA around that table for two reasons 1 To stop further progress at the UN and separately action at the ICC and 2 To play for more time so that more facts on the ground can be achieved. If the PA can be fooled again into interminable negotiations while playing footsie under the table while their tormentors steal, ethnically cleanse and murder the Palestinians, more fool them.