I agree with you; this is much more interesting than the usual fare. I thought this was particularly instructive:
Like many Palestinians, Tareq Abbas thinks his father should abandon the American-led peace talks and press for statehood instead through international organizations. He believes that President Abbas should dissolve the Palestinian Authority, forcing Israel to take full responsibility for the West Bank, as a pressure tactic. He opposes extending negotiations. So, he thinks it's too late for the two-state solution, but he also thinks that his father should abandon the US-led peace talks and press for statehood through the international institutions. On the surface, that's a contradiction, but of course what unites the two views is frustration with playing the diplomatic game according to US-imposed rules and the belief that Palestinians have to do something else. In the latter case his views aren't so different from his father's. The strategy of Abbas and his advisers is to slow-walk the march through the international institutions rather than move all at once, in part to keep each new step hanging as a threat if the talks break down. If the talks do break down, which is of course a very real possibility, there will almost surely be a new push at the UN in September. Abbas agreed to a pause of the UN strategy as part of the current round of talks; he didn't forswear its pursuit in the future. Of course, if the Israeli government is widely seen internationally as the intransigent party whose actions led to the breakdown of the talks, then a more successful push at the UN in September is more likely; it was significantly because the Israeli government was widely seen in Europe as the intransigent party that the last push was as successful as it was, with most of Europe voting for the Palestinians and key US allies abstaining. On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 10:00 AM, Joseph Catron <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm rather tired of articles and debates on the topic, but this one - by > Jodi Rudoren, in the New York Times, of all people and places - has enough > unique elements to make it interesting. > > "Back home in Ramallah, Mr. Abbas's own son has been telling him that last > chance is already long gone, the negotiations futile. The son, Tareq Abbas, > a businessman who has long shied away from politics and spotlights, is part > of a swelling cadre of prominent Palestinians advocating instead the > creation of a single state stretching from the Jordan River to the > Mediterranean Sea in which Jews and Arabs would all be citizens with equal > rights." > > http://nyti.ms/1dpKG4m > > -- > "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen > lytlað." > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] (202) 448-2898, extension 1.
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