Here we go.
This story illustrates that the Israeli side might prefer no peace agreement:
In the midst of a blame game between Israel and the Palestinians over the collapse of the talks, the president pulled the rug from under the Israeli version of events.
By*Yossi Verter |*May 10, 2014 | 11:09 AM
How Peres ruined Netanyahu's Independence Day - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz
ItÂ’s not hard to understand why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was livid with rage at the end of Independence Day. His blood boiled when he learned what President Shimon Peres had said in a television interview: That Peres had all but reached a historic agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas three years ago, but it had been shot down by the prime minister.
This story itself is not new. It was reported in real time, when at the last minute, Netanyahu ordered Peres to cancel a trip to Jordan, where he planned to sign a series of accords that were to set in motion direct talks between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
The contacts between the president of Israel and his longtime friend, the Palestinian president (with the full authority and knowledge of the prime minister), are an open secret. Peres has shared the relevant details, in full or in part, with many people over the years. For example, according to Peres, he and his counterpart agreed to resolve the dispute over recognition of Israel as a Jewish state by means of an original idea, whereby the peace agreement would be signed “on behalf of the Palestinian state” by President Abbas, and “on behalf of the Jewish state” by Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Thus, Peres believed in the past – and continues to believe – that without militant declarations and without anyone setting conditions, Abbas would recognize de facto that Israel is the Jewish nation-state. Peres believes that Netanyahu’s militancy and insistence on making this principle a huge political banner pushed Abbas into a corner and left him no choice but to reject the idea outright.
Besides the holiday gift that ruined Netanyahu’s fun on Independence Day, Peres behaved with perfect decorum. In all the interviews he gave – to newspapers, television channels and Internet sites – he was piously respectful to Netanyahu.
For his part, Peres will celebrate his own independence after he steps down as president, midsummer. Indeed, in the interviews, in which he came across as lucid and sharp, he did not speak of the vast disappointment he has felt vis-a-vis Netanyahu in the five years they have worked together. He did not share with the public the immense frustration he feels as his term draws to a close. He did not say who he thinks is most to blame for the fact that IsraelÂ’s international status in the middle of 2014 is gloomier and darker than it was in the middle of 2009, when Netanyahu was elected and promised Peres the moon.
Naively, the president believed him and traveled the world, persuading leaders everywhere that the “new” Bibi would not let history pass him by without leaving his imprint. And after every globe-trotting PR mission he conducted for Netanyahu, Peres was greeted with deliberate leaks from the Prime Minister’s Bureau to the effect that the institution of the presidency should be eliminated because of its “wastefulness and ostentation.” Who was saying this about him? None other than the Spartan monk from the residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem.
