(Ha'aretz) Barak Ravid - The Palestinians intentionally deceived U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about their willingness to conduct serious negotiations, and should therefore be blamed for the failure of the peace talks, Israeli National Security Advisor Joseph Cohen charged in a letter sent to numerous Western capitals over the last two weeks. Attached to the letter is a 65-page document that chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat submitted to PA President Mahmoud Abbas on March 9, three weeks before Israel was to release the final batch of Palestinian prisoners. In it, Erekat proposed a strategy for the PA during the final month of negotiations and after April 29, when the talks were originally scheduled to end before their premature collapse. Over the past month, the PA has implemented most of Erekat's recommendations. This shows that even while the Palestinians were talking with Washington about the possibility of extending the peace talks, they were actually planning to blow them up, and had been planning to do so even before Abbas met with U.S. President Barack Obama on March 17.
2014-05-07 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive