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Assessing the Prospects for Israeli-Palestinian Peace

(Washington Post) Editorial - President Obama's assessment this week of the prospects for Middle East peace was sobering but realistic. For now, he said, "there still does not appear to be a prospect of a meaningful framework...that would lead to a Palestinian state." "We can't continue to premise our public diplomacy based on something that everybody knows is not going to happen." For those who have criticized the administration for its unwarranted conviction that a peace deal was within reach, that is a welcome change. The curious thing about Obama's statement is that he attributed this state of affairs to an election-eve statement made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister said pretty much what the president did: For now, the conditions don't exist for creating a Palestinian state. The attempt to portray the Israeli leader as a single-handed spoiler makes no sense. In fact, the "framework" for a Palestinian state painstakingly assembled by Secretary of State John F. Kerry was spurned by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and the "peace process" has been dormant since that happened nearly a year ago. Obama appears to be considering breaking with long-standing U.S. policy by supporting a UN Security Council resolution on the terms for Palestinian statehood. That wouldn't improve the regrettable status quo he described.
2015-03-27 00:00:00
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