|
Trending Topics
|
Source: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Abbas+going+anywhere/2254816/story.html
Palestinians Could Have Negotiated Peace with Israel Years Ago
(Ottawa Citizen-Canada) Barry Rubin - Abbas and the PA are precisely those responsible for the lack of progress in resolving the Israel-Palestinian dispute. Palestinians are always presented as victims, passive observers, people who have nothing to do with their own fate. Thus, everything must always be the fault of Israel or America or the West. The fact is that their basic problem arises from their strategy of seeking Israel's destruction over a compromise peace that would mean the conflict's end in a permanent two-state solution. Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership were offered a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem and billions of dollars in start-up funding in the year 2000. Instead, they launched a war against Israel that went on for five years and cost thousands of lives. The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center at the IDC, Herzliya, Israel, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.