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The Opportunity the Palestinians Choose to Miss

(Jerusalem Post) Zalman Shoval - The Palestinian leaders' true intention is to thwart in advance any Israeli or international initiative that would put them on the road to genuinely and ideologically accepting the existence of the State of Israel, which could be interpreted as confirmation of the Jewish people's right to a state in any part of Palestine. It is more important for PA President Mahmoud Abbas to go down in Palestinian history as one who stood firm against this eventuality rather than to take practical measures that would ease the hardships of his own people. The recent meeting in Bahrain had a precedent: the Casablanca Conference following the Oslo Accords. There, too, politicians and businesspeople gathered from all over the world, including a few Arab countries. The Israeli delegation prepared detailed plans for economic cooperation with all the parties, the Palestinians first and foremost. But the unofficial Palestinian representatives (there were no official ones) announced right from the start: "No cooperation with Israel." Thus, Shimon Peres' vision of the "New Middle East," the main project of that conference, died before it was born. The writer served twice as Israel's ambassador to the U.S.
2019-07-10 00:00:00
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