Yasser Abed Rabbo, deputy head of the PLO, cautioned on Wednesday against simply returning to an “empty routine” at the negotiating table. He reaffirmed that Palestinians wanted talks to focus on setting the future borders of their state.
“We can’t return to the empty routine, a search for a framework for talks – this empty routine which is negotiating about negotiating,” he told reporters.
Continuing the talks beyond the end of this month, he said, “must proceed from and depend on one main point, and this is looking into the issue of borders.“
Now that sounds logical doesn’t it? Does anyone recall how the last round of “talks” torpedoed? Israel didn’t want to submit proposals for borders. Back in 2011 when the Quartet, the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia, requested that both parties submit comprehensive proposals on territory and security for two states, Netanyahu balked and stated such proposals should be presented in direct negotiations and not before. And our very own State Department backed up Netanyahu in staving off this demand from the Quartet, echoing in agreement with a mantra we heard repeatedly. Remember Victoria Nuland reiterating that the best way to deal with this issue “is for these parties to talk to each other, come up with borders.”
And then, they got together and predictably no proposal from Israel was forthcoming.
Which brings us the current New York Times report Abbas Takes Defiant Step, and Mideast Talks Falter. Buried in the article 19 paragraphs down is one reference to borders:
Whether, and how, to use Mr. Pollard has been vigorously debated within the administration. While some officials argue that he should be used only to break the logjam on final-status issues — the borders of a new Palestinian state, for example — Mr. Kerry has argued that these issues will all be decided as a package at the end of the talks. Mr. Kerry has argued that Mr. Pollard could be more useful now in keeping the talks alive, given the possibility of parole, according to officials.
Ah, the logjam. Now it’s a final status issue. Not a mere matter of Israel’s proposal being presented in direct negotiations: “borders of a new Palestinian state” got shoved down the road, of course. As if Israel would be proposing borders at some illusory final stage.
Did we learn anything from the Palestine Papers? We know why these negotiations keep failing. There’s no point in keeping talks alive once we realize Israel has no intention of ever even presenting a proposal for their own, or Palestinian, borders.
And you wonder why people support one state? Because, thus far, that’s all that’s ever been on the table. Own it, and let the chips fall where they may.
And lest we forget, this reluctance to declare borders is the principal reason that there cannot be a treaty or alliance between the US and Israel – both of which require such a declaration. We keep referring to Israel as our bestest friend and “ally”. The fact that it is not our friend or our “ally” is argued by Phil Ghiraldi:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37953.htm
Israel is the anchor around our neck that is sucking us to the bottom of the ocean.
A One state solution without reparations and wealth re-distribution will be something like the disaster in post apartheid South Africa, or in the one state solution in the USA, where a tiny financial elite corrupts through one dollar, one vote. The Dersh ‘s comments apply at home also:
““It is a lawless country, it’s a country with extraordinarily high rate of violent crime, and it’s a country with deep, deep racial divisions and problems that we wish had disappeared because we all love Mandela, but that’s not the reality.”
http://businesstech.co.za/news/government/54009/is-south-africa-a-failed-country/
The future for the indigenous is the same as the native Canadian-American reservation reality, assimilation and alcoholism, drugs and diabetes And the Israelis will still live behind armed walls.
Great gathering of news sources. I was wondering why the talks were blowing up(of course the MSM narrative The Rejectionist Palestinians).
Now I know better(which is why I read this site). So first Bibi tried to destroy the talks by throwing in the “Jewish state demands”(sort of like asking me to accept the U.S. as a White Christian Nation).
And when he got caught doing that, by everyone, it was no longer a wrench that could work. So they got to borders, and now this. Bibi is spinning his PR machine into overdrive.
We don’t have to speculate. We already know what the Israeli response will be. Unilaterial annexation, somekind of ethnic transfer(read: “soft” ethnic cleansing), then pretend the conflict is over. Of course, all the racial laws, the apartheid wall, the bantustans etc are still left. Most of the settlements, like Ariel, who cut deep into the West Bank will remain.
But that’ll be their attempt, unilateral annexation. Expect a lot of shoot-and-cry “liberal” Zionists crying crocodile tears the coming year or two.
“… negotiating about negotiating…”
Nails it.
The issue of borders is of supreme importance, in my view. Abbas should hold the Green Line, even if it means hundreds of thousands of Jews will find themselves living in Palestine.