In an interview with The New Yorker magazine, U.S. President Barack Obama says his Middle East initiatives — Iran, Syria & Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, have less than 50% chance of reaching final treaties.
PA: We will never recognize a Jewish Israel.<— maybe that’s one reason?
U.S. President Barack Obama thinks that the chances of the ongoing U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resulting in a final peace agreement are less than 50 percent, according to an interview he gave to The New Yorker magazine.
“Obama told me that in all three of his main initiatives in the region — with Iran, with Israel and the Palestinians, with Syria — the odds of completing final treaties are less than fifty-fifty,” wrote The New Yorker editor David Remnick.
But Obama countered his dismal prediction with a positive attitude: “In all three circumstances we may be able to push the boulder partway up the hill and maybe stabilize it so it doesn’t roll back on us,” he said. “And all three are connected. I do believe that the region is going through rapid change and inexorable change. Some of it is demographics; some of it is technology; some of it is economics. And the old order, the old equilibrium, is no longer tenable. The question then becomes, what’s next?”
However, Obama may have to lower the chances of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal even further, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday that the Palestinian Authority would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state — one of the central demands of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“The Palestinians were here 1,500 years before Israel was established, so Palestine will never be able to recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Abbas said during a visit to Morocco.
This week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Netanyahu at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Kerry is waiting for responses from both Netanyahu and Abbas regarding the principles of a framework agreement.
Meanwhile, around 20 reserve Israel Defense Forces officers signed a letter attacking Kerry’s proposed plan for the Jordan Valley. The letter, an initiative of the Terror Victims Association, was sent to the U.S. Congress. Among other things, the letter said that Kerry’s plan would endanger Israel.
View original Israel Hayom publication at: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=14875