April 30, 2014 12:13 AM
By Rami G. Khouri
The Daily Star

Story Summary

The Israeli decision to break off negotiations with the Palestinians last week after the Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas announced their reconciliation agreement reveals the darkest and most destructive sides of Israel and its Western backers vis-a-vis their declared desire for a negotiated peace agreement: their inconsistency, insincerity and hypocrisy.

Here this kind of behavior also advances the accusation that Israel and the United States in particular only wish to negotiate peace on their terms, and not on terms that treat the Palestinians and Israelis equally.

I say this because in their reconciliation announcement, Fatah and Hamas made it clear that the unity government and the desired subsequent negotiations with Israel would be based on three important principles that have long been an Israeli and American demand and that the Quartet in 2006 specifically demanded from Hamas: that Hamas adhere to nonviolence, to previous agreements and accept Israel’s right to exist.

So when the Israelis and Americans suddenly came face-to-face with a united Palestinian leadership that openly and explicitly accepted the Israeli-American terms for diplomatic engagement, the Israelis-Americans ignored their own terms for talks and totally shattered the most recent attempt to negotiate peace.

Read more: http://dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2014/Apr-30/254870-hypocrisy-triumphs-as-talks-collapse.ashx#ixzz30LtsM88H
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)