Obama to Abbas: I will make every effort to ensure Palestinian statehood
U.S. President calls Abbas days after meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu to voice support for Palestinian leadership.
By Natasha Mozgovaya and Avi Issacharoff
 | U.S. President Obama and PA President Abbas meeting in Washington in September 2009. |
Photo by: (Reuters) |
U.S. President Barack Obama phoned Mahmoud Abbas on Friday to brief the Palestinian president on the American leader's recent meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and voice his strong support for Abbas' leadership and commitment to peace.
Obama promised Abbas that he would exert every effort to ensure the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel.
Abbas' spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh told the Palestinian news agency WAFA following the phone conversation that Abbas expressed his commitment to a serious peace process that would "end the occupation" and result in an independent Palestinian state.
During the conversation, Obama noted the positive momentum generated by recent improvements on the ground in Gaza and in the West Bank, the restraint shown by both Israel and the Palestinians over recent months, and progress in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks.
Obama also noted that his enovy to the Middle East George Mitchell would be traveling to the region soon, and will meet with Abbas to build on this momentum to advance the common goals of the Americans and the Palestinians.
On Tuesday, Obama and Netanyahu held what the U.S. president described as an "excellent" meeting at the White House. Both leaders came out of the meeting convinced that direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians were imminent.
Earlier this week, just in advance of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, a brief flurry of excitement took hold of the media, as word spread of what appeared to be a major conciliatory gesture by the Palestinians.
In a well-timed leak, the London-based Al-Hayat reported over the weekend that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had offered Israel the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City as part of a future peace agreement. The proposal, according to the paper, was among several ideas that Abbas had recently submitted in writing to US Mideast negotiator George Mitchell. The rest of eastern Jerusalem, he declared, would serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.
At first glance, Abbas’s offer would appear to herald a significant form of progress. After all, the thorny issue of control over Jerusalem and its holy sites has long confounded efforts to reach an accommodation between the two sides. By granting Israel a foothold in the heart of ancient Jerusalem, Abbas would appear to be conceding that the Jewish people can stake a legitimate claim to this very special place.
But a closer look reveals that this Palestinian “concession,” like so many others before it, is in fact little more than a hollow and ultimately inconsequential act. And it would be foolish for Israel and its supporters to be duped into thinking otherwise.
TO BEGIN with, how can Abbas offer Israel something we already have? Last time I checked, the Western Wall was safely and securely under our control. Indeed, it was 43 years ago this summer, during the Six Day War, that Israel liberated the site from Jordanian occupation in an act of self-defense.
As everyone knows, the Wall was built by Herod as part of the Temple compound, where the Jewish people were worshiping God two millennia before the PLO was created.
The Western Wall is ours by right and by history, and thank God, it is in Israeli hands. We do not need Abbas or anyone else, for that matter, to give us something we already possess. And we most certainly don’t need to view his reported acknowledgment of reality as constituting a “concession” or “gesture” which merits a reciprocal response.
To do so would be to grant the Palestinians a huge advantage at the negotiating table, for it would transform their verbal acceptance of the most basic truths into something that Israel would be expected to pay for with tangible assets.
In a well-timed leak, the London-based Al-Hayat reported over the weekend that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had offered Israel the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City as part of a future peace agreement. The proposal, according to the paper, was among several ideas that Abbas had recently submitted in writing to US Mideast negotiator George Mitchell. The rest of eastern Jerusalem, he declared, would serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.
At first glance, Abbas’s offer would appear to herald a significant form of progress. After all, the thorny issue of control over Jerusalem and its holy sites has long confounded efforts to reach an accommodation between the two sides. By granting Israel a foothold in the heart of ancient Jerusalem, Abbas would appear to be conceding that the Jewish people can stake a legitimate claim to this very special place.
But a closer look reveals that this Palestinian “concession,” like so many others before it, is in fact little more than a hollow and ultimately inconsequential act. And it would be foolish for Israel and its supporters to be duped into thinking otherwise.
TO BEGIN with, how can Abbas offer Israel something we already have? Last time I checked, the Western Wall was safely and securely under our control. Indeed, it was 43 years ago this summer, during the Six Day War, that Israel liberated the site from Jordanian occupation in an act of self-defense.
As everyone knows, the Wall was built by Herod as part of the Temple compound, where the Jewish people were worshiping God two millennia before the PLO was created.
The Western Wall is ours by right and by history, and thank God, it is in Israeli hands. We do not need Abbas or anyone else, for that matter, to give us something we already possess. And we most certainly don’t need to view his reported acknowledgment of reality as constituting a “concession” or “gesture” which merits a reciprocal response.
To do so would be to grant the Palestinians a huge advantage at the negotiating table, for it would transform their verbal acceptance of the most basic truths into something that Israel would be expected to pay for with tangible assets.
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