Jordan's Abdullah talks Mideast peace process with Abbas, Blair

One of these days, Israel has to come to the conclusion that it has to make peace with the Arabs. The sooner the better. Surrounded by the Arabs, there is no way Israel can win in the long run. Israel can win 10 or 20 times, it only takes one win by the Arabs to eliminate Israel once for all.

Netanyahu is the most anti-peace PM ever. This means that his peace fakery also falls short of the mark. There are several good reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that, if Netanyahu confuses certain settlers into thinking that he actually wants peace he will receive the Rabin treatment. This means that his peace fakery can't be very convincing but there is no fear of that as we all can see. Israel's goal has always been to flood the west bank with settlers to the point that they could claim it was impossible to evacuate them. Of course, in reality, there is no such point as the partition of India showed us quite well. Even though the Israelis fall far short of the capability of the Indians and Pakistanis to conduct a population transfer, a complete evacuation of the settlements will never be impossible. It will also never be on offer.

From the beginning Abbas was not a man of war and seems not to have the stomach for physical struggle, not even Gandhi-like. Since becoming President, Abbas showed preference for diplomacy, which is a good trait except that Abbas is incredibly inept in that too. Asking for UN membership right away, instead of first asking the GA for recognition as a state, was a big, foolish mistake. The application for membership had to be submitted to, and approved by, the Security Council, which was sure to fail because of a certain US veto. Abbas should have instead requested the GA to approve his independent state based on the 1967 borders, which he surely would have gotten, and become a non-member state observer in the UN. Membership could come later, as Israel's did about a year after Independence. This would have enabled the internationally recognized state of Palestine to join UNESCO and other international bodies. But most importantly, it could join the ICC, and have every Israeli official involved in settlements indicted on a war crime, which would have forced the end of the settlement enterprise. It would have opened the way to sincere negotiations with Netanyahu because the latter would not have had anything to gain from a delay. Now, after delaying peace talks for years in favor of a diplomatic step which was certain to fail, Abbas is giving up his demand to freeze settlement construction, which will allow Israel to drag peace talks for ever. What do you call a man proceeding on Plan A, which is certain to fail, while not preparing a Plan B to continue with???