Someone At The Washington Post Finally Says It: Maybe Abbas Doesn't Want Peace

Jackson Diehl, who over a year ago noted Abbas's Waiting Game, writes about the implications of the fact that Abbas is fighting tooth and nail not to have to talk to Israel directly about peace and asks, So, Why Doesn't Abbas Want Peace Talks

Diehl writes that even if Abbas distrusts Netanayahu and does not believe that he is serious about the creation of a Palestinian state, it still makes no sense for Abbas to continue to boycott talks with Netanyahu, who for over a year now has been announcing his readiness to sit with Abbas:

So why not begin negotiations and put the Israeli leader on the spot? If Netanyahu's terms are unreasonable, he is likely to come under renewed pressure from Obama, who seems to have made a rare emotional investment in the goal of Middle East peace. By holding out, Abbas only focuses pressure on himself -- more pressure, he said the other day, than he has ever experienced. He also opens the way for Netanyahu to resume settlement construction when his partial freeze expires.


Does he really want peace? Or would he, like Yasser Arafat before him, prefer the messy status quo to going down in history as the Palestinian who once and for all accepted that a Jewish state would fill two-thirds of the former Palestine? Abbas received a far-reaching offer from Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, that met the territorial conditions he now sets. He refused to accept it even as a basis for negotiations. All through the last year, the Obama administration has disregarded that history; it has told itself and anyone who asked that Abbas was ready for a two-state settlement. In the next few days or weeks, it may find out if it was wrong. [emphasis added]

About the concessions that Olmert offered, in an interview in Novermber 2009, Olmert says he met with Abbas over 35 times--and made the following proposals to Abbas:

o 1967 Borders: Territorial solution to the conflict on the basis of the 1967 borders with minor modifications on both sides. Israel will claim part of the West Bank where there have been demographic changes over the last 40 years. This would have involved Israel claiming about 6.4 per cent of Palestinian territory in the West Bank. All the lands that before 1967 were buffer zones between the two populations would have been split in half. In return there would be a swap of land (to the Palestinians) from Israel as it existed before 1967. Olmert proposed a safe passage between the West Bank and Gaza--a tunnel fully controlled by the Palestinians but not under Palestinian sovereignty, otherwise it would have cut the state of Israel in two.

o Jerusalem. Olmert agreed that the city should be shared. Jewish neighbourhoods would be under Jewish sovereignty, Arab neighbourhoods would be under Palestinian sovereignty, so it could be the capital of a Palestinian state.

o Palestinian refugees. Olmert told Abbas he would never agree to a right of return. Instead,  on a humanitarian basis Israel would accept a certain number every year for five years, on the basis that this would be the end of conflict and the end of claims. Olmert suggested 1000 per year. In addition, there would be an international fund that would compensate Palestinians for their suffering. 

o Security issues. Olmert says he showed Abbas a map, which embodied all these plans. Abbas wanted to take the map away. Olmert agreed, so long as they both signed the map. It was, from Olmert's point of view, a final offer, not a basis for future negotiation. But Abbas could not commit. Instead, he said he would come with experts the next day.

Abbas's response:

"He (Abbas) promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman today, let's make it next week. I never saw him again."

Interestingly, Olmert has his own suggestion for a demand that Israel should make of Abbas before agreeing to return to the negotiating table:

"To this day we should ask Abu Mazen to respond to this plan. If they (the Palestinians) say no, there's no point negotiating."

Abbas could have had the things he he pushing for now--yet never came back to Olmert, not even to push for more negotiations.

Gee, do you think that Diehl is on to something?

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