The following is an unpublished letter-to-the-editor of the New York Times:
September 7, 2010
Dear Editorial Page Editor:
I somehow missed the press release announcing Palestinian peace negotiator Nabil Shaath’s appointment as Times headline writer.
“Settlements in West Bank Are Clouding Peace Talks” [September 3, 2010] quotes Shaath as saying, “The climate [in recent talks between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas] was positive, but the cloud is still there. The Israelis gave absolutely no hopeful signs that they will continue the moratorium [on settlement building].”
Rather than pin the fate of the talks on Israeli policies, the larger mystery and threat is whether the Palestinians now are prepared to make conflict-ending concessions. Netanyahu adviser Zalman Shoval says the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish nation-state “more than any other thing is the most tangible obstacle” to peace. In his memoirs released last week, Quartet envoy to the Middle East and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair writes, “If the Palestinian cause gave up violence emphatically and without ambiguity, there would be a peace agreement within a year.”
Netanyahu says Israel will go “a long way” toward achieving peace – presumably, including concessions on settlements. The real “cloud” is whether Palestinian leaders still lack the courage to prepare their people for decisions required of a final deal. According to a recent poll, only a third of Palestinians see negotiations – vice violence – as the best means to an agreement.
Sincerely,
Jess M. Sadick
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