Haaretz’s pundit takes on US envoy Ross for aiding Netanyahu

Noam Sheizaf By Noam Sheizaf July 4, 2011 | Edit

Akiva Eldar, an expert on the peace process, avid supporter of the two-states solution and author of “Lords of the Land,” a history of the Israeli settlement project, harshly criticizes the White House’s envoy to the Middle East, Dennis Ross, for backing the demands of an extreme rightwing Israeli government.

In an Haaretz article, Eldar also advises to Palestinians to continue their UN bid, and if it fails, dismantle the Palestinian Authority and let Israel face the consequences of direct control over the West Bank’s Palestinians. I think this piece is important, because it shows that following the Palestinians, the Israeli left might be also losing its faith in the American-sponsored never-ending, nowhere-going “peace process.”

For years he [Ross] has been nurturing the myth that if the United States would only meet his exact specifications, the Israeli right would offer the Arabs extensive concessions.

During the years he headed the American peace team, Israeli settlement construction ramped up. Now Ross, the former chairman of the Jewish People Policy Institute, is trying to convince the Palestinians to give up on bringing Palestinian independence for a vote in the United Nations in September and recognize the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people – in other words, as his country, though he was born in San Francisco, more than that of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who was born in Safed.

(…)

If Obama really intended to justify his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, he would not have left the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the hands of this whiz at the never-ending management of the conflict.

Read the rest here.

Noam Sheizaf

Noam Sheizaf is an independent journalist and editor. He was the founding executive director and editor-in-chief of +972 Magazine. Prior to joining +972, he worked for Tel Aviv’s Ha-ir local paper, Ynet, and the Maariv daily, where his last position was deputy editor of the weekend magazine. He is currently working on a number of documentary films.

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