“The dossier of documents that Defense Minister Ehud Barak took to the Unites States on Saturday night contained no radical formula for averting an anticipated Israeli-Palestinian clash at the U.N. It merely held more formulas of the kind we are used to. At this stage in the ever-deepening rift, these will not suffice to persuade Ramallah to choose negotiations over a verbal altercation at the Security Council and General Assembly.

Mahmoud Abbas is a serial rejecter of peace. He proved this twice, at Camp David in 2000 and again in 2009, when he beat a hasty retreat from Ehud Olmert, who had just offered him the whole world. Even those who claim that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu piled up too many preconditions – and I am one of those – admit that Abbas was the one who refused to restart talks. This fact stuck out like a sore thumb when he failed to take advantage of a ten-month settlement construction freeze to engage in concrete dialogue with Israel.”

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