Abbas uses Obama

Israel fumes: Abbas uses US visit to undermine Netanyahu
-Haviv Rettig Gur

Senior Israeli officials were dismissive and defiant, following Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's visit to Washington, highlighted by a report in which PA officials said the leadership is waiting for US pressure to bring down the Netanyahu government.

The report in [the] Washington Post, came a day after Abbas's White House meeting with US President Barack Obama. "It will take a couple of years" for this American pressure to force Netanyahu from office, the Washington Post quoted one of Abbas's officials as saying...

Setting out what the newspaper called "a hardline position," the Palestinian leader conditioned a resumption of talks with Israel on Netanyahu's agreement to a halt in all settlement building and formal Israeli government acceptance of Palestinian statehood. Abbas was quoted as saying. "Until then, we can't talk to anyone."

Abbas "rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession - such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state...

"What's interesting about Abbas's hardline position," wrote the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl, "is what it says about the message that Obama's first Middle East steps have sent to Palestinians and Arab governments."

While the Bush administration placed the onus for change in the Middle East on the Palestinians, Diehl wrote, the Obama administration had shifted the focus to Israel. The upshot is that "in the Obama administration, so far, it's easy being Palestinian," Diehl wrote.
[Jerusalem Post]
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