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Source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42787.html
In Mideast Blame Game, Arrow Tilts to Abbas
(Politico) Ben Smith - A subtle shift in the political balance between the Israelis and Palestinians seems clear: Israel is now winning the blame game. Now that Israel's moratorium on new construction in settlements has expired, the Obama administration has completed a subtle tilt toward Israel's point of view. The problem is no longer Israel's actions: It's the Palestinian insistence that one issue - settlements - be resolved before talks can begin. If Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas fulfills his promise to withdraw from talks, he will bear the full blame for their collapse. "The onus is on the Palestinians not to walk away," said Hussein Ibish, a fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. "The Palestinians can say a million times that they'll walk out - but they can't." Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator who is a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said the White House has profoundly shifted its orientation over the last year. "The administration bought into the logic that the Palestinians shouldn't insist" on the settlement issue, he said, and that "the only way to get an agreement was to return to the table."