Certainly, Israel is legally bound by past agreements signed by earlier governments. But it cannot be obligated to abide by past negotiations that simply led nowhere. Imagine a Soviet negotiator trying to force Ronald Reagan to take Jimmy Carter’s positions on arms control. It is a problem when U.S. officials say, “We all know what the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will look like,” because they base this claim on Israeli concessions at the Camp David and Taba negotiations at the end of the Clinton administration, which never produced a signed agreement. [emphasis]Claims that everyone knows what peace will look like, and that it is only a matter of getting the sides to sit down and do what is necessary (ie, for Israel to make the necessary concessions)--those claims are just another way of pushing Israel into a corner.
Technorati Tag: Israel and Middle East Peace.
Exactly. Israel is not bound by offers of concessions that were rejected by the other side. And no amount of more concessions on Israel's part would lead the other side to sign an agreement.
ReplyDeleteWhich would be of no value if the other side could not deliver on it - and there is now no Palestinian peace partner.