The failure of the peace process is all Netanyahu’s fault. That’s what Bill Clinton says. The article is from the Foreign Policy news website:
Who’s to blame for the continued failure of the Middle East peace process? Former President Bill Clinton said today that it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whose government moved the goalposts upon taking power, and whose rise represents a key reason there has been no Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
Clinton, in a roundtable with bloggers today on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, gave an extensive recounting of the deterioration in the Middle East peace process since he pressed both parties to agree to a final settlement at Camp David in 2000. He said there are two main reasons for the lack of a comprehensive peace today: the reluctance of the Netanyahu administration to accept the terms of the Camp David deal and a demographic shift in Israel that is making the Israeli public less amenable to peace.
“The two great tragedies in modern Middle Eastern politics, which make you wonder if God wants Middle East peace or not, were [Yitzhak] Rabin’s assassination and [Ariel] Sharon’s stroke,” Clinton said.
Sharon had decided he needed to build a new centrist coalition, so he created the Kadima party and gained the support of leaders like Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert. He was working toward a consensus for a peace deal before he fell ill, Clinton said. But that effort was scuttled when the Likud party returned to power.
“The Israelis always wanted two things that once it turned out they had, it didn’t seem so appealing to Mr. Netanyahu. They wanted to believe they had a partner for peace in a Palestinian government, and there’s no question — and the Netanyahu government has said — that this is the finest Palestinian government they’ve ever had in the West Bank,” Clinton said.
“[Palestinian leaders] have explicitly said on more than one occasion that if [Netanyahu] put up the deal that was offered to them before — my deal — that they would take it,” Clinton said, referring to the 2000 Camp David deal that Yasser Arafat rejected.
But the Israeli government has drifted a long way from the Ehud Barak-led government that came so close to peace in 2000, Clinton said, and any new negotiations with the Netanyahu government are now on starkly different terms — terms that the Palestinians are unlikely to accept.
“For reasons that even after all these years I still don’t know for sure, Arafat turned down the deal I put together that Barak accepted,” he said. “But they also had an Israeli government that was willing to give them East Jerusalem as the capital of the new state of Palestine.”
Israel also wants a normalization of relations with its Arab neighbors to accompany a peace deal. Clinton said that the Saudi-inspired Arab Peace Initiative put forth in 2002 represented an answer to that Israeli demand.
“The King of Saudi Arabia started lining up all the Arab countries to say to the Israelis, ‘if you work it out with the Palestinians … we will give you immediately not only recognition but a political, economic, and security partnership,'” Clinton said. “This is huge…. It’s a heck of a deal.”
The Netanyahu government has received all of the assurances previous Israeli governments said they wanted but now won’t accept those terms to make peace, Clinton said.
“Now that they have those things, they don’t seem so important to this current Israeli government, partly because it’s a different country,” said Clinton. “In the interim, you’ve had all these immigrants coming in from the former Soviet Union, and they have no history in Israel proper, so the traditional claims of the Palestinians have less weight with them.”
Clinton then repeated his assertions made at last year’s conference that Israeli society can be divided into demographic groups that have various levels of enthusiasm for making peace.
“The most pro-peace Israelis are the Arabs; second the Sabras, the Jewish Israelis that were born there; third, the Ashkenazi of long-standing, the European Jews who came there around the time of Israel’s founding,” Clinton said. “The most anti-peace are the ultra-religious, who believe they’re supposed to keep Judea and Samaria, and the settler groups, and what you might call the territorialists, the people who just showed up lately and they’re not encumbered by the historical record.”
Clinton affirmed that the United States should veto the Palestinian resolution at the U.N. Security Council for member-state status, because the Israelis need security guarantees before agreeing to the creation of a Palestinian state. But the Netanyahu government has moved away from the consensus for peace, making a final status agreement more difficult, Clinton said.
“That’s what happened. Every American needs to know this. That’s how we got to where we are,” Clinton said. “The real cynics believe that the Netanyahu’s government’s continued call for negotiations over borders and such means that he’s just not going to give up the West Bank.”
(Source: Foreign Policy)
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16 Responses
He is 100% backwards and what a shoteh and menuval shain komohu.
Of course Clinton fails to mention the second Intifada, and the second Lebanon war, the withdrawal from Gaza, the fact that thousands of missles rain down on Israel from Gaza on an ongoing basis, as part of the reason why things have changed in Israel. That is of course, accepting that Ehud Barak would have been able to deliver on his agreement with Clinton were Arafat to have accepted it. He led a minority government at the time with Arab party support. Bottom line – this guy is evil.
#1 Amen. You said it all. No more needs to be said. I would add that in addition to a shoteh, a tippish.
Raboisai,
“ashaimim anachnu”.
the jews put his wife into office. gave her all the credibility to run for prez, and because of that became sec of state.
she definetely shares the same opinion, and worse.
remember the way she hugged arafat ym”sh wife, and gave the original idea of a plo state.
oy lonu ki chatanu.
Doesn’t he realise to what happened to Sharon and Rabin is a sign he mentioned it but doesn’t want to take it to his heart
Why is everyone beating up on Clinton? this is actually the first smart thing i heard from him, he’s 100% right any time someone wanted to give away land or make peace with the Arab murderers something happened to them as a punishment, so hes right if you give away land or kick people from their homes in order to give that land to the people who murder Jews God will punish you swiftly, God does not want us to make peace with them he wants us to wipe them out so Clinton for once your 100% on the money
The Medrash says whoever tries making peace with them only end up with embarrassment.
Haman, eh, Clinton hated Jews before Monica Lewinsky; now he hates Jews even more. Vashti, eh, Hillary hated Jews even before Monica; now she hates Jews even more. Don’t forget; Arafat visited the White House more times than any other world leader when Clinton was president. Nuff said.
slick willy showing his true colors. maybe for once he may comprehend thet it’s best to be on our Creators’ side
and promote good in the world. boy, does this guy have what to repent for b4 he goes 6 feet under together with all his liberal “peaceniks”. they have their own set of man made values, as if peace is an above all given strategy for curing all the worlds’ ills. fantasy my brother. oseh shawlom bimromav, who can forget this lowlife deface those holy words at rabins’ funeral. come to think of it, maybe he was up to s/t, only The One Above can right the wrongs, with Moshiach speedily in our days,Amen
How different does anyone thing hillary is from bill? They’re both good-for-nothing dirt-bags.
and don’t forget the $50-150 million the arabs have “donated” to his clinton library/slush fund. Maybe there’s a slight connection there.
Clinton is doing everything in his power to back up his wife. What else can he do? But that doesn’t make it the truth, no more than the nonsense he spewed to the Grand Jury when he was involved with Monica Lewinsky.
So lets set the record straight. The reason that Barak made that fabulous offer to Arafat had nothing to do with Clinton. He made that offer to Arafat to prove to Clinton and the rest of the world, that even if Israel would give the Arabs everything they still will not recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Clearly Clinton contradicted himself. QUOTE:
“The two great tragedies in modern Middle Eastern politics, which make you wonder if God wants Middle East peace or not, were [Yitzhak] Rabin’s assassination and [Ariel] Sharon’s stroke,” Clinton said.
YET Clinton claims that Netanyahu is the deterrent to peace. HE HASN’T ABSORBED HIS OWN MESSAGE. HE’S A TOTAL JERK.
But let’s remember that hearts of reshaim are ruled by the Ribbono Shel Olam.
Clinton,Truman , Nixon and Carter were good to Israel. Tha’s all WE NEED to remember.
Oh yeah… we should definitely be taking advice from a man who will be remembered for adultery, for lying about it while looking right into the faces of America (via the tv news) and making the Presidency of the United States into a joke.
This Clinton is a real jerk. He sure doesn’t get it. This is what happens to people who give away or try to give away Jewish land! All he’s proving once again is that democrats are stupid.
He may be correct, but the reason Netanyahu dosn’t want peace, is because he his the only one that understands the true intentions of the arabs. They can never be trusted, their promises are worth way less then the paper its written on.