Last week, blogger Elder of Ziyon reminded us of the biggest Israel-related story of the decade: that after a major investigation Haaretz published a report on why the 2014 peace talks actually failed and it showed that the exact opposite of the “conventional wisdom” was true.
The investigation showed that while “the most right-wing government in Israeli history” accepted a framework for talks that included a Palestinian State based on the 1967 lines, Abbas rejected the first such framework and then refused to respond to an even more pro-Palestinian framework that explicitly called for eastern Jerusalem to be the Palestinian capital. Since Abbas refused to accept the framework for the talks, Netanyahu put off the fourth release of convicted Palestinian terrorists from jail until Abbas would agree so the negotiations would continue. Abbas used the delay in the prisoner release as an excuse to say Israel breached the rules of the talks and the world bought it hook, line and sinker.
So the next time someone tries to tell you Israel was to blame for the collapse of negotiations, show them this:
