If the details circulating in the U.S. and Israeli press over the last few days regarding the framework of the peace agreement being crafted by Secretary of State John Kerry are accurate, says at least one senior Palestinian official, the ongoing but fragile talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel will come to an abrupt end.
Seemingly based on Thomas Friedman’s mid-week column in the New York Times that said Kerry would back a deal in which the ‘right of return’ would not be featured while demanding recognition of Israel as “the state of the Jewish people” and only a vague description of important boundaries, the official told Haaretz on Friday that such a framework would be unacceptable.
“We don’t know what the meaning of a capital in Jerusalem is and how the Americans see Jerusalem and whether this conforms to the Palestinian position,” the official, who insisted on anonymity, told the Israeli newspaper. And added: “The American demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state alongside a vague formulation of the right of return cannot be a basis for any outline that could lead to an agreement.”
According to Friedman’s column on Wednesday:
Though the revelations basically follow the well-worn outlines of the U.S. position on the “two state solution”—Friedman himself didn’t think he was making news in the column (“I thought what I wrote was already out there in the public sphere,” he said later)—the description in the column was enough to create a brief media firestorm given the sensitive nature of the talks.
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According to Ilene Prusher, also writing in Haaretz, the column by Friedman, who has been in Israel all week, “was widely quoted as a definitive development across the Israeli media. And when Friedman spoke at the Jerusalem Press Club on Thursday night, Uri Dromi, the JPC director, gave him a ‘mazal tov’ on the important scoop.”
According to Prusher, Freidman “chuckled” in response and said he didn’t even think the description of the ‘Kerry Plan’ needed a source because he thought he’d already read about it in Haaretz and elsewhere.
One final, though noteworthy, aspect of the Friedman article this week is where he writes:
Given that many observers see the U.S.-backed”peace process”—going back as far as the Oslo Accords—as deeply flawed, calling the arguments and push for a “two state solution” not nearly as compelling as the creation of a single, bi-national and democratic state that unites Palestinians and Israelis, the fact that Friedman—known for his deep support of the Israeli state—is now signaling his possible acceptance of of the “one state solution” is interesting.
Calling such a resolution to the long conflict a “fanatical” one is classic Friedman, but for many Palestinians, Israelis and those who advocate on their behalf for a lasting and sustainable peace, the only just solution has long been that of a single, democratic state.
Proving that those once wedded to the “two state solution” can move beyond it, former British MP and minister to the Middle East Peter Hain made news this week by coming out in favor of a single or ‘common state’ for the Israelis and Palestinians. Writing at the New Statesman, Hain first offered his credentials:
But then, criticizing Israel’s continued settlement activity in the occupied territories and the flawed contours of the current negotiations, Hain offered this on his evolving perspective:
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