Netanyahu Killed Julius Cezar

When one reads the American media, it becomes clear that the fate of the current peace process depends on Netanyahu and on him only. Naturally, the result of any negotiation depends on both sides. Stating the Netanyahu is essential for a positive conclusion of the negotiation is not adding information or illuminating the complexity.

The major problem with the different articles about the peace process is that they assume that Abbas is an interesting party and that they totally ignore the background of the last five years of peace attempts between Israel and the Palestinians.

Abbas was not a willing partner. He was dragged kicking and screaming by Obama to the negotiation table. Netanyahu, on the contrary, was quite eager to come to the table. (This doesn't prove his willingness to compromise.) Since the opening ceremony in the White House, Netanyahu pronouncements and statement were highly positive and increasingly so. Again, it may not prevent him from acting differently when negotiating, but it does a lot to improve the atmosphere. Abbas, since the ceremony, has given interviews to the Arab press that he will never recognize the right of Israel to exist. Some American reporters know that, e.g. Jackson Deihl of the Washington Post, but most just fail on the job writing about a topic with which they are unfamiliar. (Of course, we also have the morons such as Cohen at the NYT who decides that peace is not in the offing based on a dinner party in Tel Aviv; who gives such guys a license to write for the public?)

When Abbas announces openly, though in Arabic, that he will not make peace ever, his words are discarded as "inside Arab talk." I know many hundreds of Arabs, I find them as precise and as genuine as any Western person. One has to conclude that the media has already found the body and the perpetrator even before the murder took place. Talk about farsighted!

As said above, Abbas did not want the peace talks nor did he accept them without hesitation. On the contrary, Obama had to apply considerable pressure to bring him to the talks. Before Netanyahu became prime minister, and a useful scapegoat for the ignorant and sometime malicious media, Israel’s prime minister was a moderate Olmert who targeted peace openly. He offered Abbas the best deal ever offered to the Palestinians by Israel. One would think that Abbas, who pretends to head a nation seeking peace, prosperity and statehood, would jump on that offer and start to negotiate an even better agreement for the Palestinians. That is not what Abbas did; he simply rejected the offer without elaboration or discussion. Abbas responded to a serious peace offering as if saying, “You can shove it.” With such baggage, I don’t expect Abbas to agree to anything. The American media makes it easier on Abbas not to make peace; it already know who the guilty party is and it isn’t Abbas.