“I know this deal isn’t perfect.”
July 21, 2014 10:10 AM   Subscribe

This post was deleted for the following reason: We can basically handle one Israel/Palestine-related thread at a time - feel free to post this there, or just hold off until that one's closed. -- restless_nomad



 
s/explosive, inside/sad, predictable
posted by Behemoth at 10:19 AM on July 21, 2014


This is a really impressive piece, and the story is not what you would expect. It was much closer to a deal then what I would have expected. Netanyau secretly agreed that “[t]he new secure and recognized border between Israel and Palestine will be negotiated based on the 1967 lines with mutual agreed swaps.”

Kerry really seems like he just couldn't make this work due to failure of his own abilities and mistrust among the parties. On the misunderstandings between him and Netanyahu at the start: “Both of them like to talk for long periods of time,” said someone who has dealt with both leaders. “And I’m not sure that when one of them is lecturing the other at length, the other guy is really listening very carefully.”

The description of when it fell apart:
The next day at the White House, Obama tried his luck with the Palestinian leader. He reviewed the latest American proposals, some of which had been tilted in Abbas’s direction. (The document would now state categorically that there would be a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem.) “Don’t quibble with this detail or that detail,” Obama said. “The occupation will end. You will get a Palestinian state. You will never have an administration as committed to that as this one.” Abbas and Erekat were not impressed.

After the meeting, the Palestinian negotiator saw Susan Rice—Abbas’s favorite member of the Obama administration—in the hall. “Susan,” he said, “I see we’ve yet to succeed in making it clear to you that we Palestinians aren’t stupid.” Rice couldn’t believe it. “You Palestinians,” she told him, “can never see the fucking big picture.”
posted by blahblahblah at 10:32 AM on July 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


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