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The Role of the Palestinian Authority in Israel's Election Results

(Gatestone Institute) Alan M. Dershowitz - Those who are upset with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's electoral victory should put much of the responsibility on the Palestinian Authority (PA). At least twice over the last 15 years, Israel has offered the Palestinians extraordinarily generous two-state solutions. The first time was in 2000-2001 when Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton offered the Palestinians more than 90% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, with a capital in Jerusalem. Yassir Arafat turned down the offer and started an intifada, in which 4,000 people were killed. In 2007, Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians an even more generous resolution, to which Mahmoud Abbas failed to respond positively. The hopes of Israelis for a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian conflict were dashed by Arafat's rejection and Abbas' refusal to accept generous peace offers. The Obama administration also contributed to the election results in Israel by refusing to listen to Israeli concerns - shared by Israelis of every political stripe - about the impending deal with Iran. The current deal contains a sunset provision which all but guarantees that Iran will have nuclear weapons within a decade. While the international community, academics and the media tend to have short memories, many Israeli voters have long memories. They remember the lethal responses to earlier peace offers. So let's look at a videotape of the last 15 years in order to understand how Israel's democracy produced the current election results. Already, the spokespersons for the PA have predicted that the reelection of Netanyahu marks the end of any realistic peace process, without reminding their listeners of how Palestinian intransigence marked the end of earlier peace processes.
2015-03-19 00:00:00
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