Israel Matzav

Jackson Diehl awakens to reality

Jackson Diehl continues to work through the implications of his meeting with 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen last year. And this time he's almost got it right.

So why not begin negotiations and put the Israeli leader on the spot? If Netanyahu's terms are unreasonable, he is likely to come under renewed pressure from Obama, who seems to have made a rare emotional investment in the goal of Middle East peace. By holding out, Abbas only focuses pressure on himself -- more pressure, he said the other day, than he has ever experienced. He also opens the way for Netanyahu to resume settlement construction when his partial freeze expires.

Here we come to the real mystery about Abbas: Does he really want peace? Or would he, like Yasser Arafat before him, prefer the messy status quo to going down in history as the Palestinian who once and for all accepted that a Jewish state would fill two-thirds of the former Palestine? Abbas received a far-reaching offer from Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, that met the territorial conditions he now sets. He refused to accept it even as a basis for negotiations. All through the last year, the Obama administration has disregarded that history; it has told itself and anyone who asked that Abbas was ready for a two-state settlement. In the next few days or weeks, it may find out if it was wrong.

No, 'Abbas' doesn't want peace. He wants to destroy the State of Israel just like Arafat did. He cannot and will not ever agree to live in peace alongside a Jewish state.

Oh, and by the way, he's not being asked to give up 'two thirds of the former Palestine.' 78% of the 'former Palestine' is now the Kingdom of Jordan. He's being asked to accept a Jewish state in two thirds of what's left - about 14% of what was originally covered by the Balfour Declaration.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:09 AM