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Source: http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/editorial/cataloguing_palestinian_duplicity
Cataloguing Palestinian Duplicity
(New York Jewish Week) Editorial - Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta seems to have come up with the solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian impasse: "Just get to the damn table," he said in response to a question on what Israel should do next. How foolish of the rest of us not to have thought of that sage advice years ago and saved so many lives. Of course Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asserted on numerous occasions that he is ready to sit down and negotiate directly with the Palestinians at any time. It's the Palestinian Authority that is holding out. It's disturbing, but not surprising, that administration after administration in Washington since the Oslo agreement of 1993 has ignored the essential stumbling block to real peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. That's the refusal of the Palestinian leadership, including the "moderate" Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. Just this week an important new book arrived that details in exhaustive fashion the duplicity of the PA, under President Mahmoud Abbas, in speaking to the West of its recognition of Israel while at the same time spreading hate speech and glorifying terrorists at home. Deception: Betraying the Peace Process, by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik of Palestinian Media Watch, chronicles the statements and actions of the PA. We hope it's not too naive to believe that if the facts about the PA's behavior were known more widely, Western funding, starting with the U.S., would be leveraged far more effectively, with the threat of a complete cutoff if the situation persists. An authentic agreement is less about getting to "the damn table" than preparing Palestinian children to accept rather than seek to destroy a Jewish state.