Israel Matzav: What Olmert offered Abu Mazen

What Olmert offered Abu Mazen

Last spring, Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post wrote an article in which he described an offer that Ehud Olmert made to 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen, which Abu Mazen left on the table. Now Greg Sheridan of the Australian conducts a lengthy interview with Olmert in which that offer is described in great detail. Sheridan asks several key questions after recounting the offer.

Olmert is right to paint this offer as embodying the most extensive concessions, and the best deal, ever offered to the Palestinians by an Israeli leader. But his very experience with this offer raises several questions. Could he have delivered its terms if the Palestinians had accepted it? Perhaps international momentum would have enabled him to do so, and, in fact, Olmert's Kadima party did remarkably well in the election which followed his prime ministership. Could any Israeli government today realistically make such an offer? The answer would seem to be no.

And most important, if the Palestinian leadership cannot accept that offer, can they accept any realistic offer? Do they have the machinery to run a state? Is their society too dysfunctional and filled with anti-Semitic propaganda to live in peace next to the Jewish state? Could they ever deliver on any security guarantees?

I put these questions to Olmert and his response to them is perhaps the most lukewarm part of our interview: "It's certainly a legitimate concern, since I never received a positive response from them. I think it's up to them (the Palestinians) to prove the point. I hope they will rise to this."

Olmert still believes the Palestinians should respond to the deal he offered them. If they did so, this would open the way to peace, but only if Palestinian society is reconciled to living in peace next to Israel as it really exists.

Olmert apparently still doesn't recognize it (or doesn't want to recognize it), but it should be clear to all of us that the 'Palestinians' have no intention of compromising nor of living in peace with Israel. Even if, as Olmert claims, Abu Mazen wants to reach a peace agreement and recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, he has neither the support nor the determination to make that happen. There isn't going to be peace in my lifetime or yours. The 'Palestinians' have suckled terror with their mothers' milk.

Read the whole thing.

Israel Matzav: What Olmert offered Abu Mazen