Palestinians Miss Umpteenth Straight Opportunity

In his joint press conference yesterday with Condoleezza Rice, after a meeting in which she reportedly planned to tell him “not to miss the opportunity” presented by the Gaza cease-fire, Mahmoud Abbas discussed the purpose of forming a national unity government:

I said that we presently, for the past six months, work on the creation of the government and we tackled the different topics and more than one proposal and ideas in order to create a national unity government.  I, frankly, would like to say that a national unity government to break and end the siege.  I’m not looking for names . . . . whether from Hamas or from Fatah.  What I want, I want individual personalities who are capable, decent experts regardless of their names and identities . . . This is what I want in order to be able to break the siege.

The goal is to break the siege. And the government is not a goal by itself; it’s not at all our goal.  The goal is to create a government today and after an hour we would demand from the world to end the siege and to accept that.

His goal is not a government that will live side by side in peace and security™  with Israel.  He does not seek a government to fulfill the road map obligation of “sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure.”

He just wants a government that would agree — for approximately one hour — to meet the three minimal conditions the world has set for turning on the financial spigot again:  renounce terror, recognize Israel, and abide by the agreements the Palestinians have already signed.

The purpose of the “unity” government would be unify around a single press release — one that would renounce “terror” (although not “resistance”), “recognize” Israel (as long as it recognizes the Palestinian “right” of return), and promise (once again) to do what the Palestinians already promised to do.  

How difficult can this be?  Just issue a single press release, and an hour later “demand” the world turn on the billion dollar spigot.  End of siege.

Well, it’s pretty hard, as Abbas indicated in the remainder of his answer to the reporter:

Unfortunately until now, I have not reached a result for the six months of pain and agonies of consultations and dialogue and lots of talk with an empty — or talk that I could not reach a conclusion.

One would love to know what word almost followed “empty.”

The reason the Palestinians can’t form a government to issue the press release is the same reason Arafat couldn’t accept a state on 97% of the West Bank with a capital in Jerusalem:  they aren’t interested in the money if they have to give up their objective, and their objective is not a second state.  They keep missing their “opportunity” because it is not an opportunity they want.