During their meeting, Jabarin and Barghouti discussed efforts to reconcile split Palestinian factions before the upcoming municipal elections, which are set for October. Barghouti emphasized that the success of the local government elections could pave the way for democratic elections in the Palestinian Legislative Council, and the office of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority after Abbas—which would give him a chance to supersede Abbas”.Other than this brief mention in Arutz Sheva and an editorial in a website catering to religiously-observant Jews, I couldn’t find this news item covered by any other mainstream media outlet. That’s not surprising.
“The Palestinian Authority does not see the French initiative as an inducer for negotiations, but as a way to avoid them,” he said. Instead, Netanayhu said, he would be willing to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “in Paris or wherever,” and hold face-to-face negotiations without international mediation. “Every difficult issue will be on the table,” he said.France plans to host another conference with Israel and Palestine in the autumn.
"He refused to give up his dream of peace in the face of violence," Clinton, who formed a close bond with Rabin when both were in office, said to roars of applause. "The next step will be determined by whether you decide that Yitzhak Rabin was right, that you have to share the future with your neighbors ... that the risks for peace are not as severe as the risk of walking away from it. Those of us who loved him and love your country are praying that you will make the right decision."Even last year, Clinton indicated that he didn't believe that Netanyahu could make peace. But this is false history, as Jonathan Tobin at Commentary pointed out, "if there is anything that the last 22 years have taught us it is that it clearly not up to the Israeli people."
Over the last 20 years, various countries, including Canada, have invested over US$30B in the emerging Palestinian state, with little to show for it. Calev Myers of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice explains why. "The international community made a terrible mistake in 1994," Myers says. "In order to push for two states for two peoples, they recognized Yassir Arafat as the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people and helped him create the Palestinian Authority."
In his address, Abbas accused Israel of committing genocide in its recent conflict with terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip — calling 2014 “a year of a new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people” — and said that Israel was not interested in living in peace with its Palestinian neighbors. “It’s a speech of incitement full of lies,” an unnamed source from the PMO told the Hebrew press. “That’s not how someone who wants peace speaks.” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said in a statement shortly after Abbas’s speech that the PA president demonstrated that “he doesn’t want and cannot be a partner for a logical diplomatic resolution.”Here is part of the speech, in which Abbas heaps verbal abuse on Israel:
There are some moments a journalist will never forget. In early 1997, Yossi Beilin decided to trust me, and show me the document that proved that peace was within reach. The then-prominent and creative politician from the Labor movement opened up a safe, took out a stack of printed pages, and laid them down on the table like a player with a winning poker hand. Rumors were rife about the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement, but only a few had the opportunity to see the document with their own eyes or hold it in their hands. I was one of those few. With mouth agape I read the comprehensive outline for peace that had been formulated 18 months earlier by two brilliant champions of peace -- one, Israeli, and one, Palestinian. The document left nothing to chance: Mahmoud Abbas is ready to sign a permanent agreement. The refugee from Safed had overcome the ghosts of the past and the ideas of the past, and was willing to build a joint Israeli-Palestinian future, based on coexistence. If we could only get out from under the Likud’s thumb, and get Benjamin Netanyahu out of office, he will join us, hand in hand, walking toward the two-state solution. Abbas is a serious partner for true peace, the one with whom we can make a historic breakthrough toward reconciliation. We understood. We did what was necessary. In 1999, we ousted Likud and Netanyahu. In 2000, we went to the peace summit at Camp David. Whoops, surprise: Abbas didn’t bring the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan to Camp David, or any other draft of a peace proposal. The opposite was true: He was one of the staunchest objectors, and his demand for the right of return prevented any progress.
Mahmoud Abbas: "Our position is that the settlements – from start to finish – are illegal. They talk about settlement blocs, or about settlements here and there, but we say that every house and every stone that were placed in the West Bank since 1967 and to this day are illegal and we do not recognize them." […] "No resolution that we agree upon with the others will be passed unless it is confirmed by popular referendum of all the Palestinians worldwide." Applause […]
Israel’s Justice Minister (and former Foreign Minister) Tzipi Livni has been sounding the panic button on the international boycott of Israel for at least a year. It was part of her political platform for elections, but her party still managed only a small percentage of...
An interesting thing happened at the funeral of Nelson Mandela. Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, rejected the Boycott Divest and Sanction campaign against Israel, urging only a boycott of Israeli products made in the West Bank. While in South Africa this week for the memorial...
Why does the New York Times refuse to report on the ongoing Palestinian incitement against Israel?...
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