First The Arab League Gives US A Month To Get Talks On Track, Now Abbas Says Talks Are Over

So now it's being reported that a Fatah official says two-state solution is over:

The Palestinian Authority has concluded that the peace process based on a two-state solution has failed, a senior Fatah official said on Tuesday.


His statement came as PA officials repeated their rejection of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s proposal to extend the settlement construction moratorium if the Palestinian leadership recognized Israel as a Jewish state.

But the US urgently sought to keep talks going, and called on the Palestinians to present their own counter-proposal to keep things on track.

Counter proposal? Just how many unilateral demands are Abbas and his friends supposed to make?
Netanyahu first proposed the moratorium on the settlements on his own, making an offer that had never been made before--and never demanded by the Arabs--in the context of negotiations. It was made as an inducement to get Abbas to the peace table.

Abbas then waited months before finally being dragged kicking and screaming to the talks.

Now what was offered once as a one-time inducement has been grabbed onto as a necessary precondition to the talks themselves.

During the past couple of weeks, Netanyahu has offered to extend the moratorium in return for :

• The release of Jonathan Pollard
• The recognition of the Bush letter that recognizes that Israel will retain some of the settlements
• Recognition by the Palestinian Authority that Israel is a Jewish state

You can argue that Bibi knew that Abbas would never accept that last offer--but then again, Abbas did not make a counter-offer. Instead, Abbas has demanded that Netanyahu's offer for a temporary moratorium be made into a requirement before he will return to the table.

From the Israeli perspective, the construction inside the settlements is a non-issue:

The official said the whole moratorium matter was an “artificial issue.” The vast majority of construction is in large settlement blocs that Israel, according to various proposals that have been discussed over the years, would retain in any agreement, the official said. The amount to be built outside the major settlement blocs is minuscule and not going to change anything, he added.

But the Arabs are already distorting Netanyahu's offer of an extended settlement freeze in exchange for recognition as a demand:

But Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf said resuming settlement construction had “already foiled the peace talks.

“Netanyahu’s new demand is an obstacle to the resumption of the peace talks,” he said.

But wait a minute, didn't the Arab League--in Abbas's presence--just give the US one month to get the talks moving again? Why now has Abbas brought matters to a halt?

Arlene Kushner points out that the answer may be in what was reported in the Jordan Times:

Also yesterday, Kouchner and Moratinos met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman to discuss obstacles to the resumption of direct peace talks.

During a two-hour meeting also attended by Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, Palestinian officials told the top European diplomats that the Palestinian Authority is studying six options, including unilateral declaration of an independent Palestinian state without an agreement with Israel and with the backing of the US and the UN if peace talks continue to go nowhere.

Could Abbas be aiming to take this to the next level?
After all, what does he have to lose?

Technorati Tag: Mideast Peace Talks.