Encountering Peace: From David to Goliath

[Jefferson23]

Palestinians are fighting for exactly what we Jews fought for – freedom, independence, identity.

This is what I know: Over the past three years I personally transmitted messages from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offering to convene a secret back channel of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Netanyahu refused every proposal. The proposals were made by Abbas repeatedly over the past three years.

In July 2013 when US Secretary of State John Kerry was beginning his initiative, Abbas and then Netanyahu stipulated that any direct contact between them had to be approved by Kerry. I informed one of Kerry’s advisers of the possibility of a meeting between the two leaders and Kerry vetoed the idea of direct meetings between them without American control and involvement. Kerry was afraid that if the meeting failed, his initiative would be dead before it even started.

I tried to convince both sides to agree to hold the meeting in secret without informing the Americans because I believe that when the Americans are in the room, the Israelis speaks to the Americans, the Palestinians speaks to the Americans, and the Israelis and the Palestinians don’t speak to each other. My last attempts to create a direct secret back-channel between the two leaders were in the second week of April 2014 until the final days of the month and the crash of the process. Once again, as in all of the past three years, Abbas was prepared to meet Netanyahu any place, any time but, as in the past, Netanyahu refused.

In February 2014 the One Voice Movement and the Israeli- Arab peace caucus of the Knesset brought 300 Israeli university students for a two-hour meeting with Abbas in Ramallah. The meeting was a great success. I immediately thought that there should be a reciprocal meeting in Jerusalem with Palestinian students and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Encountering-Peace-From-David-to-Goliath-352979

[Jefferson23]

1. An outrageous sell out and there still was no deal that would satisfy Israel's Netanyahu:

He ( Abbas ) agreed that IDF troops could stay in the Jordan Valley for five years and then be replaced by NATO troops. He agreed that Israel would annex the main settlement blocs leaving about 80 percent of the settlers under Israeli sovereignty in exchange for equal land swaps adjacent to the Green Line. Abbas agreed that the Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem (which the Palestinians consider settlements) would remain under Jewish sovereignty, including the Jewish quarter of the Old City and the Kotel as well.