Annapolis, was grate start for promising the Palestinians their long over due land. In fact to date was the 60th anniversary of such decision by the UN, Sixty years of war and peace talk and a few UN resolutions to that effect which the U.S. would not bother to enforce unlike the resolutions that would like to enforce.
Palestinians have come to conclusion that Israel and its supporters just talk for the sake of talking and do not wish to end this conflict. Notice I said Palestinians and NOT Mahmoud Abbas. They (Palestinians) have been toyed with not only by Israelis and Americans, but also by their own leaders, by other Arab countries, each for their own political reasons, and also by Islamic Republic of Iran.
If sixty years ago the UN told the Palestinians and the Israelis to go and negotiate a peace based on two state solutions, and sixty years later they are still at the exact same place that they were, what make them to do this now?
Does the Palestinian have something this time around to offer for the negotiation to go forward that they did not have for the last 60 years? Probably not.
Does the Israelis have more incentive to offer the Palestinian their statehood? Definitely yes.
The problem is that the Palestinians do not have anything to offer at the peace negotiation or anything that they could negotiate with, or any bargaining chip, except to say what they want. For instance if Israel would not give the lands before 1967, and say, we can only give you 90% of them, could the Palestinian counter offer and say okay will give you??? this??? and you give us the whole 100% of the 1967 land. No, they can not, since they do not have any chips to negotiate with. And because Palestinian believe, by virtue of their rights and a few UN resolutions to the idea that Palestine must have its 1967 boarders in order to say we have a just peace.
That is the essence of the problem. The Israelis has taken so much from the Palestinians that they have not left anything for negotiation. Then you might ask how this could be solved? As always most difficult problems have simple solutions;
That simple go back to 1967 boarders would solve most of the problems, except the older problem of the refugees, which goes back much further. That problem also should be look at in the most simple way, some ideas have already surfaced, compensation for those people and their family, in fact it should be a very generous compensation offer that they(refugees) can not refuse.
Messiah On A Hill
Billionaire Munib al-Masri looks to capitalize on Palestinian anger.
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By car they're only 15 minutes apart, but you can't get much further from the West Bank's desperate refugee camps than the summit of Mount Gerizim, on the outskirts of Nablus. The Palladian-style mansion perched there—the home of Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri—houses a staircase imported from Sicily, a Gothic fireplace from Versailles and a glassed-in winter garden that al-Masri says was a gift from Napoleon to Josephine. "This is a Picasso, but it looks like a Goya," the billionaire says with a casual wave. He is unapologetic about the excess. "I could live in New York, Geneva or London," he says. "I prefer Nablus."
That's a rare sentiment, billionaire or not. Israeli and American officials have noted, somewhat smugly, that disillusionment with the Hamas government in Gaza is growing. Less hyped is frustration with the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the West Bank—a third of Palestinians in a recent poll expressed disgust with both sides. "Palestinians are fed up with all these inexperienced people," says al-Masri. Hamas's boasts of an imminent military victory ring hollow, but so does optimism from Fatah diplomats about this week's Mideast summit in Annapolis, Md. Al-Masri, whose ambitions are as lofty as his Nablus mansion, thinks he's the man to seize that middle ground.
Like a Palestinian Ross Perot, the billionaire recently announced he was forming a movement called the Palestine Forum to challenge the two major Palestinian factions. Third-party politics is nothing new in the Palestinian territories: the current prime minister, Salam Fayyad, is a member of an independent party called the Third Way. But Fayyad was appointed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the aftermath of the Hamas takeover of Gaza and has little popular support. Traditionally, independent candidates have rarely gained traction in a society where party militias are still often responsible for local security, and party leaders dole out patronage jobs.
Al-Masri has a couple things going for him. One is the depth of Palestinian anger. Since its May coup in Gaza, Hamas has been strangled by Israeli and international sanctions, which have driven up unemployment and led to shortages of consumer goods. "If elections were held today, there's no chance Hamas would win," says Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki. Even some key Hamas figures have begun to question the wisdom of seizing the Gaza Strip. "We're in a big trap now," says a senior member of Hamas, who didn't want to be identified for fear of reprisals from his own party. "Every aspect of life has gotten worse [since May]." At the same time, Palestinians resent the perceived corruption and cronyism of Abbas's Fatah party.
Al-Masri himself has long been associated with the Fatah establishment. After college in Texas, where he studied geology, he returned to the West Bank and helped found the Palestinian phone company, Paltel, as well as the Palestinian stock exchange in Nablus. In 1990, after the outbreak of the first gulf war,?one of the family companies landed a lucrative contract to supply American troops. Financial success at the time depended on ties to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat; al-Masri was at Arafat's side as he was dying in Paris and flew home with the PLO chairman's coffin. He then threw his support behind heir-apparent Abbas. "I elected Abu Mazen," he says, using the president's nickname.
Despite those ties, however, al-Masri is widely respected as an entrepreneur and not just a Fatah crony. He promises his new organization will be run like a business—top-down perhaps, but a competent alternative to the chaotic status quo in the Palestinian territories. At least some of the businessman's political tactics—like a?recent speech at a convention of 800 Palestinian hairdressers—seem downright brilliant. "They're better than Reuters," he says with a laugh.
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