There's no doubt Obama campaign operatives were working with Hertzog "Hope and Change" or Netanyahu
about 2:50 "hope and change" couldn't they at least have come up with a new slogan?
"The nation will decide who its leaders will be. The elections are about hope. Whoever wants despair and disappointment should vote for Bibi [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] but those who want hope and change should vote for me," Herzog said
.
Israel has one ally. I wonder how Mr. Netanyahu's recent declaration, about denying Palestinians any possibility of statehood, will effect future relations with that one ally.
With me none. The two state option has been on the table for more then four decades. The muslims refused it. I myself would have pulled a long time ago.
The Muslims refused it? Which Muslims? Are they all represented by the same monolith?
CAMERA Palestinians Rejected Statehood Three Times Claim Frustration -- with Israel
In accord with this, at least three times the Palestinians have refused statehood when it was offered to them, most recently just a few years ago. Here are the details:
1. In 2008, after extensive talks, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and presented a comprehensive peace plan. Olmert's plan would have annexed the major Israeli settlements to Israel and in return given equivalent Israeli territory to the Palestinians, and would have divided Jerusalem.
Numerous settlements including Ofra, Elon Moreh, Beit El and Kiryat Arba would have been evacuated, and Hebron would have been abandoned. Tens of thousands of settlers would have been uprooted. Olmert even says preliminary agreement had been reached with Abbas on refugees and the Palestinian claim to a "right of return."
Olmert
recounted much of this in an interview with Greg Sheridan in the
Australian newspaper:
From the end of 2006 until the end of 2008 I think I met with Abu Mazen more often than any Israeli leader has ever met any Arab leader. I met him more than 35 times. They were intense, serious negotiations.
On the 16th of September, 2008, I presented him (Abbas) with a comprehensive plan. It was based on the following principles.
One, there would be a territorial solution to the conflict on the basis of the 1967 borders with minor modifications on both sides. Israel will claim part of the West Bank where there have been demographic changes over the last 40 years...
And four, there were security issues. [Olmert says he showed Abbas a map, which embodied all these plans. Abbas wanted to take the map away. Olmert agreed, so long as they both signed the map. It was, from Olmert's point of view, a final offer, not a basis for future negotiation. But Abbas could not commit. Instead, he said he would come with experts the next day.]
He (Abbas) promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman today, let's make it next week. I never saw him again. (Nov. 28, 2009)
