Not erroneous, but wrong: Washington Post on Mideast diplomacy
Errors of omission cause “U.S. tactics in Mideast talks criticized; Analysts say Obama should have stuck with call for settlement freeze,” a December 9 dispatch by The Washington Post’s Jerusalem bureau chief, Janine Zacharia to focus disproportionately on Israel. Disproportionate focus yields a distorted picture.
The article:
* Omits that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his negotiators let nine months of Israel’s 10-month West Bank construction freeze expire before entering direct talks — and then only under American pressure.
* Omits that Palestinian insistence on an Israeli construction moratorium and its extension was something new. The Post does not remind readers that from the 1993 start of the Oslo process neither Yasser Arafat nor his successor, Abbas, had made a settlement freeze a prerequisite to talks until after the Obama administration insisted on one.
* Does not mention, in highlighting comments from Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar and Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, that both men have credibility problems. See, for example (Eldar) and (Erekat). As a result, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, not PA President Abbas, is portrayed as President Obama’s chief headache. The article cites former U.S. negotiator Aaron David Miller, a more neutral source, but no one to directly balance Eldar or Erekat.
* Does not report, in conveying Erekat’s reference to “the 1967 borders” between Israel and the West Bank, that such borders do not exist. Until they are negotiated according to U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, it is the 1949 Israeli-Jordanian armistice line that separates Israel proper and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).
* Omits, in reporting Erekat’s comment on Argentine, Brazilian and Uruguayan recognition of “Palestine,” that such putative recognition contradicts Resolutions 242 and 338 and undermines attempted U.S. mediation.
The one-sided presentation in “U.S. tactics in Mideast talks criticized” leaves the inaccurate impression that Israel obstructs America efforts to restart direct Israeli-Palestinian talks desired by the PA.
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