Sunday January 27, 2013

I've Been Thinking:

The World Economic Conference in Davos just ended. Leaders have gone their separate ways, some to attend other conferences.

The African Union Summit followed Davos. It was there that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stood up early Sunday morning and said that "the Israeli coalition's makeup might change, but the Palestinian's demands for the negotiations will not change."
Abbas made clear exactly what Palestinian demands are: "the freezing of settlement construction, releasing prisoners and solving the core issues like Jerusalem and the refugees."

The most interesting insight to emerge from the recent Israeli election and the formation of the new coalition is that the Palestinian issue is not a significant variable. In fact, it is way down the list of priorities and, for some, it is a negative issue.

Despite lip service from the White House saying that the Palestinian issue is important and lip service from the Arab world saying it is important, there has been almost no pressure on Israel or on the Palestinians to solve the problem.

That is revealing.

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