Daily Alert Archives

U.S. Officials: Blame Palestinians, Too

(Bloomberg) Jeffrey Goldberg - Last week, the dean of Israeli newspaper columnists, Nahum Barnea, reported that senior American officials are placing almost all the blame for the collapse of the Middle East peace process on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Well, that was last week. This week, perhaps in reaction to the reaction to Barnea's article, American officials I spoke to were careful to apportion blame in a way that was slightly more evenhanded. Officials I spoke to said they are peeved at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for, in essence, checking out of the peace process as early as February. One key moment in this drama came in March, when Abbas, at his own request, met U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House and heard Obama present a set of fairly dramatic American-inspired proposals (some of which had to do, apparently, with the future borders of the Palestinian state). Obama told Abbas in a direct way that he would be awaiting his response to the proposals. "I want you to get back to me soon," Obama said, according to officials. But a response never came. American officials I spoke to likened Abbas' lack of response to the decision made 14 years ago by Abbas' predecessor, Yasser Arafat, to leave the Camp David peace talks without even countering an Israeli proposal for Palestinian statehood.
2014-05-09 00:00:00
Full Article