Faltering peace talks latest in history of Palestinian rejection

The Palestinian rejection of offers made at Camp David and Taba in 2000 and at Annapolis in 2008 by former Israeli Prime Ministers Barak and Olmert respectively, if accepted, would also have led to a Palestinian State being established over more than 90% of the West Bank with land swaps to make up the balance. The whole of Gaza would have been included, and there would have been shared control over east Jerusalem.

The three ‘no’s’ delivered by Abbas in March show how little the Palestinian position has advanced since the notorious “Three No’s” contained in the Khartoum Declaration in the wake of the failed Arab war of 1967 – “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.”

In fact, nothing much has changed since Sir Alexander Galway revealed how the Palestinian people had become political currency in the hands of their supposed protectors. One can’t help but see the same spirit in the anti-Israel lobby today, whose concern for the Palestinians seemingly applies only insofar as they can be used as a weapon against Israel. Their activism rarely if ever extends to Palestinians starving in Syrian refugees camps or Palestinians thrown from roof-tops by Hamas militants.

It is the Palestinian people who have most to gain from the peace process and most to lose from its failure. The misguided absolutism of the anti-Israel lobby only reinforces the Palestinian leadership in its intransigence and the Palestinian people in their statelessness.