Mr. Abbas plans to present an initiative Tuesday to the Palestinian leadership that, several people close to him said, would bypass American-brokered negotiations with Israel that have failed for many years to produce a Palestinian state. Instead he will call for an international conference or United Nations resolution demanding a deadline to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. As leverage, Mr. Abbas would finally join the International Criminal Court and other institutions where he has long threatened.
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Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the P.L.O. executive committee, said in an interview this month that the era of bilateral negotiations was over. “Never again, never again in my lifetime or Abu Mazen’s anybody will say, ‘Let’s continue the peace process,' ” Mr. Abed Rabbo said. “Let’s have an international conference, and by this date there will be an end of the occupation, and everything will be done under that.”
http://www.nytimes.com/...
It's clear that the U.S. can no longer be an honest broker, if it ever was one. The Likud government's support in congress and in the media's right-wing echo chamber makes it impossible for the administration to credibly pressure Israel to end its settlement enterprise once and for all. The process, with only the U.S. and Israel in the room with the Palestinians, has merely premitted Israel to expand settlements and take more Palestinian land while stringing the Palestinians along.
If many of those who have supported the Gaza operation are serious about their opposition to the settlements and about their support for a viable two-state solution, they should welcome this opportunity to bolster the PA vis-a-vis Hamas, and move the region to a just solution to the conflict. Israel may not agree to it, but at least the U.S. should finally signal that only a multi-participant conference can solve the problem. And that it will not use its security counsel veto to constantly enable Israel's intransigent behavior.
To paraphrase President Kennedy, those who make a peaceful resolution impossible make violence inevitable.