Daily Alert Archives

The EU Should Not Be Complicit in Abbas' Mistake

(The Commentator) Daniel Schwammenthal - Having been marginalized by the Gaza conflict, PA President Mahmoud Abbas remains determined to ask the UN General Assembly for non-member observer state status on Thursday. Abbas failed to embrace the offer by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for a comprehensive peace in 2008, and he has largely refused to even speak to Olmert's successor, Benjamin Netanyahu. Abbas then has the chutzpah to cite the absence of peace talks, which he is himself boycotting, as justification for going to the UN. The creation of a state can only come through direct negotiations and any UN endorsement based on Palestinian terms will only make it harder to find a mutually acceptable compromise in the future. By supporting the unilateral UN bid, EU member states would not only assist the Palestinians in violating their contractual obligations under the 1995 Oslo Accords, they would also undermine the EU's own standing, which after all signed the accords as a witness. How will violating past agreements encourage Israelis to trust Palestinians to abide by future agreements? And why is Abbas going to New York instead of Jerusalem to negotiate peace? The writer is Director of the AJC Transatlantic Institute in Brussels.
2012-11-28 00:00:00
Full Article