Word: palestinians
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Many a jaded commentator saw Obama's Tuesday meeting with Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a symbol of surrender to Netanyahu's refusal of the U.S. demand that Israel halt all construction on land conquered in 1967. Instead, Netanyahu offered a partial and time-limited freeze and appeared to force the President of the United States to back down. For Abbas, the handshake with Netanyahu orchestrated by Obama was viewed as a humiliating climbdown from his refusal to talk to the Israelis until they implemented that settlement freeze. (Read about the photo-op peace process...
Netanyahu, briefing the Israeli media after the talks, suggested that the Palestinians had also caved in to his demand for a reopening of talks without preconditions on an agenda the two sides would determine in discussions. But Abbas insisted that any talks would be based on the full range of final-status issues established by previous agreements - Netanyahu has publicly ruled out negotiating on two of those issues, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital. (See pictures of life in a West Bank settlement...
...test of Israel's peacemaking bona fides and had been a centerpiece of Obama's Cairo outreach speech in the spring. But there was an even stronger challenge to Netanyahu in Obama's declared plan to relaunch negotiations "that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Jerusalem." He also spoke of the goal of those negotiations as being the establishment of "a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967." (See a video of Mike Huckabee's three-day trip to Israel...
...reclaim some of the ground he has consequently lost to the more radical Hamas organization, Abbas had refused to meet with the Israelis until they established their bona fides through a settlement freeze. By meeting with Netanyahu absent that halt to construction on occupied territory, the Palestinian Authority President risks further undermining his already diminished authority...
...other for the impasse. Netanyahu last week warned that Abbas will have to "decide if he is Arafat or Sadat." Sadat is hailed in Israel and the U.S. as a peacemaker, while Arafat has been portrayed as an obstacle to peace. But things look very different to the Palestinians: Abbas has a portrait of Arafat hanging in his office, and seeks to draw authority by claiming to represent his legacy; it's highly unlikely that any Palestinian politician would claim Sadat as an object of emulation...