(Jerusalem Post) Amb. Alan Baker - The Palestinian leadership's refusal to even consider the U.S. peace plan, despite the considerable political, economic and financial benefits that it offered them, threatens to undermine any possible return to genuine negotiations. Their refusal undermines the commitment by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in the name of the Palestinian people, in his September 9, 1993, letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, according to which: "The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process, and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides, and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations." The Palestinian refusal should logically have generated considerable international condemnation of the Palestinian leadership. Yet the UN, the EU, international leaders and the international media have refrained from criticizing or condemning the Palestinian refusal to cooperate in a plan intended to restore peace negotiations. To the contrary, they encouraged the Palestinian leadership in its determination to undermine the plan. The international community and specifically the European states, after having turned a blind eye to the Palestinian boycott of the peace plan, are not really in the position to criticize and condemn Israel for considering ways to realize those components of the plan that are ultimately intended to apply to Israel. The Palestinian leadership cannot exercise an indefinite right of veto over peace negotiations. Had they used political wisdom from the start and welcomed the plan as a basis for negotiation, then the issue of the unilateral application of sovereignty by Israel over parts of the West Bank would most likely not have arisen. The writer, who served as legal adviser to Israel's Foreign Ministry and as Israel's ambassador to Canada, presently heads the International Law Program and Global Law Forum at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
2020-06-11 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive