The Most Important Article that You Didn’t Read about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

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David Gerstman:

Last week Gen. (ret.) Michael Herzog (brother Israel’s opposition leader Isaac Herzog) wrote a remarkable article (.pdf) in The American Interest.

Herzog, who has been involved in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations since 1993 didn’t write his article to place blame (though he does) for the failure of the 2013-2014 talks overseen by then-Secretary of State John Kerry but “it is my sincere hope that this analysis will inform a meaningful policy debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

But if you Google Herzog’s name for the past week, precisely one news organization covered the article: The Times of Israel. Some blogs such as The Tower and Yaacov Lozowick have written about it too. One would think that an insider’s view of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians would draw a lot of attention, but it didn’t.

Presumably that is because Herzog didn’t blame Bibi first.

That isn’t to say that Herzog has no criticisms Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He wrote that Netanyahu made a bad choice by allowing prisoner releases as an inducement to get Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to participate in the talks. Herzog thought that a limited settlement freeze would have been preferable. He also believed that Israel put too much emphasis on Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

But overall Herzog described Netanyahu as showing “seriousness, far more so than public accounts attest,” writing that the prime minister “made progress.”

Herzog wrote, that Netanyahu “by contrast [to Abbas], was immersed in the process. Every call with Kerry was preceded by a thorough preparatory meeting that he himself led, and was followed by one as well. It was evidently not an easy journey for him. He came under tremendous and conflicting pressures, yet he stayed the course.”

The Palestinians, in Herzog’s telling, were much different. He quoted Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat saying that the nine months that Kerry designated was “too much time,” for the negotiations to come to an agreement. As Herzog noted, “His statement succinctly reflects the Palestinian mindset I have witnessed for years. It is as if negotiations are simply about exacting what Palestinians perceive to be their rights, rather than engaging in a two-way give-and take.”

Herzog may write at the end it the Israelis and Palestinians “who own the conflict; it is they who must live with its consequences. Any failure in a peace process is first and foremost their failure,” but the Palestinian mindset he described has to raise the question if any Israeli government could come to terms with the currently constituted Palestinians leadership.

“Much as many ask whether Netanyahu possesses the will or the capacity to make the bold decisions necessary for peace, I have serious doubts about Abbas,” Herzog wrote. “They are supported by his record (including the way he avoided responding to Olmert’s offer in 2008) and his demeanor. Aging, losing domestic legitimacy and focused on his legacy, he is even less prone to taking such risks.”

More generally, he observed that Israel is currently “lacking a willing and capable Palestinian partner.”

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There is no 2 state solution, Call Afganistan New Palestine and move them all there.