Talk about chutzpah! Hey,Obama...you sit down with those Jews so we don't have to:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has proposed that the Obama administration negotiate the final borders of a Palestinian state with Israel, a Palestinian official said Wednesday, as a US envoy headed to the region for another attempt to restart Mideast peace talks.
Such a proxy arrangement could provide a way around the current deadlock over reviving Israeli-Palestinian talks, which broke off more than a year ago. Abbas says he won't return to the table without a complete Israeli settlement freeze, something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to do.
As an alternative, US officials could replace Palestinian negotiators in border talks with Israel, said an Abbas aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the content of internal meetings. The US negotiators would be given clear parameters, the aide said.
Remember when the Arabs were criticizing the US because they felt it was too pro-Israel and 'not an honest broker'? Apparently they have no interest in actual fairness as long as the bias is in their favor. But you knew that, right?
Abbas still is insisting of Jews not being able to build in their country or their capital in areas he feels the Palestinians are entitled to of course...but he's content to have Netanyahu agree to it secretly, so as not to unduly rile people.
I have a feeling the Israelis will pass on this one. And in fact, that's pretty much what Netanyahu's spokesperson said today.
Un-freaking believable.
truthfully, i can't tell if ff is engaging in sarcasm here or not.
ReplyDeletelemme see here, i've been coming to J/P for more than a couple of weeks now, and i've learned that under the previous occupant of the white house, the US armed hamass, the US sent military advisors to train hamass, the US has supported what amounts to a coup as this abbass guy should have resigned last year at this time, and before that, when the palestinian people said they wanted a hamass led gov't, the US began the measures i've described above, including sending gobs and gobs of US taxpayer dollars to fund fatah.
how's that for a run-on sentence?
now that abbass knows the current occupant of the white house loaths the jooish people, why would he not make such a request?
and further, why would he not think hussein will follow through?
considering the above mentioned issues, i sort of wonder if ff has engaged in sarcasm in his essay.
i wonder why he feels it is so unbelieveable?
Hi Louie,
ReplyDeleteThe unbelievable part was an expression of my amazement on how far over to the Arab side Abbas thinks Obama is that he would even propose this.
Obama may very well try,but I doubt he'd get anywhere. Netanyahu will never agree to what Abbas wants unless he's tired of being Israel's PM.
Also, I could be wrong but I doubt that Obama wants the public onus of being a beard for the Palestinians in negotiations that are bound to fail
In any event, Obama, as I've mentioned before is not a foreign policy guy..and he has lots of other problems to deal with.
Regards,
Rob
This is silly on so many levels that it is hard to know where to start. I'm going to mention just a couple of points. 1.)What leverage does Obama have? There really isn't any thing that the Israelis get from America that Israel cannot get or manufacture for themselves. It may be inconvenient but there is nothing they get from America that is not insurmountable. On the ohter hand Israel has tremendous leverage over America. Israel could stop sharing its intellegence with America. They could stop assisting the Americans in developing new technologies. They could start assisting China or Russia against America. This is just to name a couple of things. In summary, America needs Israel far more than Israel needs it. If the Palestinians wanted another leader to negotiate on their behalf with Israel, why not call the Russians? Israel gets about 80% of its oil from Russia. If Russia should decide to cut this off, it would be devestating to Israel. This would cause more damage to Israli interests than any thing Aemrica could ever do.
ReplyDelete2.)Generally Congress is assumed to be Pro-Israel. At least most major political commentators seem to suggest this. As such, there is a high degree of probability that Congress would act to thwart much of Obama's actions in such a situation.
Why would Mr. Abbas suggest this? He was either a.) drunk, stoned, or both, b.)he overestimates American power, or c.)he has another agenda and this is some sort of deception. I think c is the most likely, however, b could be the correct answer. The Arabs and much of the world have spent so much time vilifying America that they tend to overestimate American power. By building up the country to something other than what it actually is it makes it much easier to vilify. Sometimes I think they believe their own propaganda.
Finally, a no name Republican that no one had heard about named Soctt Brown defeated Barack Obama yesterday. The Israelis have much more potent weapons they can use against Obama than Mr. Brown does or did. As such, any attempt by Mr. Obama in this area would result in abject failure. Yes this was a defeat for Obama. By choosing to campaign on his opponents behalf it became his fight. He lost. The Israelis are far more formidable than Scott Brown.
I think Abbas suggested this so he could both embrace a deal, then refuse to carry out the terms of a deal later. When it's inconvenient for him, he'll simply say he didn't negotiate it and was forced into making the deal. This is the old trying to have your cake and eating it too. Obama, who is our first pro-Muslim president, takes all the heat and Abbas gets all the goodies. In Abba's view, Obama will take one for the Ummah.
ReplyDelete