Bill Clinton: Netanyahu killed the peace process

[Pirate Smile]

Bill Clinton: Netanyahu killed the peace process



Who's to blame for the continued failure of the Middle East peace process? Former President Bill Clinton said today that it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- whose government moved the goalposts upon taking power, and whose rise represents a key reason there has been no Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Clinton, in a roundtable with bloggers today on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, gave an extensive recounting of the deterioration in the Middle East peace process since he pressed both parties to agree to a final settlement at Camp David in 2000. He said there are two main reasons for the lack of a comprehensive peace today: the reluctance of the Netanyahu administration to accept the terms of the Camp David deal and a demographic shift in Israel that is making the Israeli public less amenable to peace.

"The two great tragedies in modern Middle Eastern politics, which make you wonder if God wants Middle East peace or not, were Rabin's assassination and Sharon's stroke," Clinton said.

Sharon had decided he needed to build a new centrist coalition, so he created the Kadima party and gained the support of leaders like Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert. He was working toward a consensus for a peace deal before he fell ill, Clinton said. But that effort was scuttled when the Likud party returned to power.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/09/22/bill_clinton_netanyahu_killed_the_peace_process#.TnuVojZ_qy4.twitter

More at the link regarding changing demographics, etc.

[Maccagirl]

1. Bill and BiBi aren't buds?

Who woulda thunk it.

[Jefferson23]

2. At least someone is saying it from the Democratic party:

"The most pro-peace Israelis are the Arabs; second the Sabras, the Jewish Israelis that were born there; third, the Ashkenazi of long-standing, the European Jews who came there around the time of Israel's founding," Clinton said. "The most anti-peace are the ultra-religious, who believe they're supposed to keep Judea and Samaria, and the settler groups, and what you might call the territorialists, the people who just showed up lately and they're not encumbered by the historical record."

[Dawson Leery]

3. The Likud will NEVER accept peace.

No religious fundamentalist will ever accept peace.

[Pirate Smile]

4. His current coalition is toxic.

[shaayecanaan]

5. Latest polling results

Notwithstanding the housing protests, rising cost of living, diplomatic missteps, and so forth, were elections held today Netanyahu would remain prime minister:-

Nevertheless, one thing hasn't changed: Despite the summer's social protest and the intensive media coverage of Labor's primary, the poll still showed the Likud/religious/right-wing bloc winning a clear majority of the 120-seat Knesset - 64 or 65 seats. Since Israeli prime ministers are elected by parliament rather than directly, that means Benjamin Netanyahu would likely remain prime minister.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/poll-labor-chips-away-at-kadima-but-no-inroads-into-likud-1.384289

[shira]

14. Which goes to show Netanyahu is following the will of the electorate....

The will of the electorate is that it doesn't want another Gaza in the West Bank.

[Violet_Crumble]

6. It's almost like once they become former Presidents they're far more open....

Couldn't agree more with what he said. Netanyahu is a total disaster for the region.

"The two great tragedies in modern Middle Eastern politics, which make you wonder if God wants Middle East peace or not, were Rabin's assassination and Sharon's stroke," Clinton said.

I was far from an admirer of Sharon and think his actions in his later days were more out of pragmatism than anything else, but I'd never wondered before how different things would be now if he'd not had his stroke. Whether his change was due to just pragmatism or whether he was mellowing in his old age, it was obvious he was saying and doing things that would have been unimaginable from him even ten years before that...

[Pirate Smile]

7. They are free from the political restraints out of office. Can you imagine the freak out if Pres.

Obama said something like this right now? It would be massive.

[bemildred]

8. He is defending his "legacy" and all that.

If one allows that he left a legacy at all, if would be Oslo etc., and then it's quite clear that Bibi trashed it. Not to mention the peace with Egypt, the alliance with Turkey, but one cannot blame that all on Bibi. But central to all that is the loss of deterrence, as they say, nobody is afraid of Bibi, except maybe US politicians.

[Violet_Crumble]

9. I guess to his credit he has some sort of legacy...

The way Obama's going, he's not going to have one to leave behind. I guess he could wave around that speech he gave a year ago at the UN calling for Palestinian statehood, and then in the other hand wave around his latest speech to the UN where he opposes the bid for Palestinian statehood....

[Jefferson23]

10. The loser: Netanyahu expresses 'disappointment' with Abbas' UN speech

In an interview with NBC's 'Meet the Press', Netanyahu talks about Mahmoud Abbas' consistent refusal to 'accept Israel's existence', the 'insatiable crocodile' of Islamism, and America's continual support for Israel.



Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his “disappointment” on Sunday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech to the UN General Assembly, during an interview with NBC’s long-running news show “Meet the Press”.

Netanyahu, who sat down for an interview with host David Gregory, stated both that he was “trying to move forward” the peace process through negotiations, and that the “core of the conflict” lies with the Palestinians’ persistent “refusal to accept Israel’s existence.”

When asked about threats facing Israel, Netanyahu answered that he is responsible for the “fate of the one and only Jewish state", and he seeks to "erect the wall against insatiable crocodile of Islamism, before it devours us for breakfast.”

Netanyahu further rebuffed several Republican presidential contenders’ claims that Obama is “throwing Israel under the bus” by saying that America supports Israel in “unprecedented ways” and that this support is “expressed by any person who happens to be in the White House".

Netanyahu also commented on former President Bill Clinton's claim that the Israeli Prime Minister is not interested in peace, telling Gregory that Clinton's successor, President George W. Bush, knows well “how the Palestinian leaders moved away from the Israeli prime ministers' proposals. They didn't come, and now they go to the UN".

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-expresses-disappointment-with-abbas-un-speech-1.386656

[red dog 1]

11. Clinton is right!

Bill Clinton is right.

He was wrong to support the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act

He was wrong to support N.A.F.T.A.

He was wrong not to take action in 1994 to stop the genocide in Rwanda.

He got caught with Monica L, and then denied it, which was wrong.

But he's right about Netanyahu!

[DonCoquixote]

12. With all due respect bill

Your wife helped, as she pretty much made sure foreign policy would continue on appeasing Israel at all costs.

[shira]

13. 10 years ago, Clinton blamed Arafat for the Camp David / Taba failure.

Abbas rejected a better deal in 2008 offered by Kadima.

But the blame is on the Netanyahu government?

:shrug:

[Shaktimaan]

15. Bill Clinton: Netanyahu killed the peace process

Who's to blame for the continued failure of the Middle East peace process? Former President Bill Clinton said today that it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- whose government moved the goalposts upon taking power, and whose rise represents a key reason there has been no Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Clinton, in a roundtable with bloggers today on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, gave an extensive recounting of the deterioration in the Middle East peace process since he pressed both parties to agree to a final settlement at Camp David in 2000. He said there are two main reasons for the lack of a comprehensive peace today: the reluctance of the Netanyahu administration to accept the terms of the Camp David deal and a demographic shift in Israel that is making the Israeli public less amenable to peace.

"The two great tragedies in modern Middle Eastern politics, which make you wonder if God wants Middle East peace or not, were Rabin's assassination and Sharon's stroke," Clinton said.

Sharon had decided he needed to build a new centrist coalition, so he created the Kadima party and gained the support of leaders like Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert. He was working toward a consensus for a peace deal before he fell ill, Clinton said. But that effort was scuttled when the Likud party returned to power.

"The Israelis always wanted two things that once it turned out they had, it didn't seem so appealing to Mr. Netanyahu. They wanted to believe they had a partner for peace in a Palestinian government, and there's no question -- and the Netanyahu government has said -- that this is the finest Palestinian government they've ever had in the West Bank," Clinton said.

" have explicitly said on more than one occasion that if put up the deal that was offered to them before -- my deal -- that they would take it," Clinton said, referring to the 2000 Camp David deal that Yasser Arafat rejected.

But the Israeli government has drifted a long way from the Ehud Barak-led government that came so close to peace in 2000, Clinton said, and any new negotiations with the Netanyahu government are now on starkly different terms -- terms that the Palestinians are unlikely to accept.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/09/22/bill_clinton_netanyahu_killed_the_peace_process?page=1

[azurnoir]

16. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=365557