Tuesday, February 09, 2010

PM Fayyad

This letter was published in the Jerusalem Post on 7/2/10 in response to
PA PM Salam Fayyad's speech at the Herzliya Conference last week, that
was reported on the front page of the Jerusalem Post as a very
conciliatory statement.

Sir:
We welcome the courageous words of PM Salam Fayyad of the PA at the
Herzliya Conference ("Fayyad: we want to live alongside you in peace and
security," Feb 3, 2010), but unfortunately they are less significant than
they appear.
Fayyad tried to justify the insistence of PA Pres. Abbas for a complete
freeze of Israeli building on theWest Bank and Jerusalem as a
precondition to talks resuming, but in fact an Israeli freeze on building
can only result from negotiations. Also, while the PA police are getting
more effective, the economy on the West Bank is improving and movement by
Palestinians is less restricted, all as a result of PM Netanyahu's
policies, there can be no permanent improvement without a negotiated
agreement between Israel and the PA.
Pres. Abbas is apparently afraid that an "end of conflict" agreement will
come out of such negotiations, and he like his predecessor does not want
to go down in history as the Palestinian leader that accepted Israel and
ceased the "armed struggle."
Finally, Fayyad actually represents only about 2% of the Palestinian
Arabs, he is greatly outnumbered by Fatah that controls the West Bank and
Hamas that controls Gaza. So his words while pleasing have little to do
with reality.
Sincerely
Jack Cohen
Netanya

Recent reports indicate that the Obama Administration's insistence on
restarting negotiations have persuaded Pres. Abbas to drop his
preconditions and to accept "proximity talks" in which Sen. John Mitchell
will at first act as intermediary between the two sides.

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