More doubters as to the real meaning of the "UN Victory"

"This year, when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in October that he was “willing to go to negotiations right away without any preconditions”, he was met with stone-cold silence from the Palestinians." I thought this, from The Henry jackson Society of 29 November was also interesting (I missed it first time round, else I'd have included in the last posting). This is by Raheem Kassam, and ploughs a similar furrow to that of Ilana Decker.

Bottom line: the Palestinians are not the least bit interested in negotiations for a Two-State solution. On this basis, Netanyahu's "Area E1" house-building proposal becomes a negotiating tool: "you want us to stop building these houses? Come to the negotiating table in good faith and we'll see what we can do".

Which is no less than some commentators on the Middle East have been saying this past week. Perhaps they'll (Abbas and Co.) only come to the table when one or more of the West Bank's Palestinians real sponsors (Iran, Syria) have suffered fatal or near fatal set-backs to their own regional hegemonic plans.

By: Brian Goldfarb