This week's Israel-Palestine quiz: Who was recently referred to as sometimes sounding like "an Israeli diplomat?" a.Dennis Ross b. Barack Obama c. Tony Blair d. Danny Ayalon or e. all of the above? For the answer, read on… Today's NY Times reports a strong statement by Nabil Shaath defending the PA's decision to take its statehood campaign to the UN Security Council. But what especially struck me about Shaath's statement was his stinging dismissal of David Hale and Dennis Ross' intervention on behalf of the Netanyahu government (yes, you heard me right–read farther below): Mr. Shaath was blunt in his dismissal of the elements of a statement presented to Mr. Abbas on Thursday by Dennis B. Ross and David M. Hale, two senior American officials. Tony Blair, the former British prime minister and Quartet representative, has been the central player in drafting the statement. Quartet envoys were due to meet in New York on Sunday. Mr. Shaath said the statement "violated six parameters of the peace process," including accepting Israeli settlement growth, calling Israel a "Jewish state," pre-empting discussion of a right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel, and rejecting efforts to unify rival Palestinian factions: Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, which rules in Gaza. In other words, all that the pro-Israel flacks in the Obama administration could come up with was a vague commitment to do something on behalf of Palestinian interests in return for the PA giving up almost all of its key national interests in the negotiations. It would accept Israel as a Jewish state, renounce the Right of Return, and renounce any effort to reconcile with Hamas. And this is a serious proposal, how? What this proposal does is advance Israel's narrow interests in maintaining the status quo. It gives Palestine nothing. That's why Shaath made this telling comment about Tony Blair, one of Ross' partners in crime in this little caper: Mr. Shaath said that when he himself saw the Quartet statement proposal: "I gulped. This was the statement that was supposed to persuade President Abbas not to go? Mr. Blair doesn't sound like a neutral interlocutor. He sounds like an Israeli diplomat sometimes." More:
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