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U.S. Peace Negotiator Dennis Ross: What about Palestinian Responsibilities to Achieve Peace?
(Jerusalem Post) Gil Hoffman - Former U.S. peace negotiator Dennis Ross said Tuesday that President Obama deserves credit for advancing Israel's security, but criticized his approach on the issue of settlements in an interview with the radio network VoiceofIsrael.com. "Insisting on a complete freeze, including natural growth, established an objective that no Israeli government had carried out," Ross said. "Creating a standard that couldn't be achieved gave the Palestinians an excuse to sit back and do nothing....I think it was a mistake, and it made it very difficult to do very much on the peace process." "If one is going to raise questions on why we don't have peace at this point, the criticism has to be directed toward both sides. It can't be directed only toward the Israelis. There can't be questions only about Israeli responsibilities when there's no reference to Palestinian responsibilities." Ross noted that Israel had made three significant efforts to pursue peace since 2000, and in each case the Palestinians rejected or didn't respond to them.