Photo of the Day April 9 Washington Post: Palestinian farmer Abu Mohammed, 75, uses a donkey to pull a plow as he cultivates his field in the West Bank village of Lubban on the outskirts of Nablus. Muhammed Muheisen-AP
RE: Daoud Kuttab: Abbas Has Not Resignedhttp://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/abbas-makes-his-move/#daoud
Dear Editor,
I very much appreciated Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab's Room for Debate blog "Abbas Has Not Resigned". Keeping his eye on the ball, Kuttab adeptly brings up many relevant points and explains crucially important factors, such as the fact that "Mr. Abbas laid out his own red lines: an independent state on the 67 borders including East Jerusalem and a fair solution to the refugee problem."
Kuttab also states that "The Palestinian leader has also been kicked around by radical Palestinians and the Islamic Hamas movement for his unwavering faith in a peace process that seems to be politics as usual in yet another spineless U.S. administration." I know that radicals do tend to perceive the U.S. as spineless, but I think they are very wrong. I also think they are wrong to ridicule and reject the current push to settle the Palestine/Israel conflict with negotiations now, based on the Arab Peace Initiative's clear and very easy to understand goals.
Keeping things in perspective, we need to be noticing that, as Dr. Hussein Ibish summed up so succinctly in The Atlantic's recent Jeffrey Goldberg Interview: Hussein Ibish on the Fantasy World of One-Staters): "Twenty-one years ago, there was no contact ever between the U.S. and the PLO. No contact, zero, and no Palestinian statehood is the consensus American foreign policy and it is a national security priority under Obama. People in the House, key positions like the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman, chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, Gary Ackerman, Nita Lowey on Appropriations - all of them Jewish American members of Congress, stalwart supporters of Israel, and all of them committed to peace based on two states."
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/hussein_ibish_on_the_fantasy_w.php
I'd say a Harvest moon is glowing- and it is time to glean.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
The sun sets over the West Bank city of Bethlehem in August 2009. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Thursday he will not seek re-election as he voiced frustration with the US position on Israeli settlements and delivered a major blow to Washington's Middle East peace efforts. (AFP/File/Abbas Momani)
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