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The views shared on The Mideast Peace Pulse are those of the author(s) and not those of Israel Policy Forum.

New Phone Number

By Israel Policy Forum
Friday, January 27, 2012 - 11:07am

Please note that IPF's phone number has changed. We can now be reached at 212-354-1812. 

We will not stand for this

By Israel Policy Forum
Saturday, January 21, 2012 - 7:46pm

Israel Policy Forum is shocked and appalled by the column published in the Atlanta Jewish Times by its owner and publisher Andrew Adler calling for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States policy includes its helping the Jewish state obl

Amb. Daniel C. Kurtzer on 'Reviving the Peace Process' (TRANSCRIPT)

By Israel Policy Forum
Friday, January 13, 2012 - 10:13am
In an ideal world, if we were writing this up as a scenario we would say let’s put this all on hold, and everyone stays away happily and nothing changes for the worse, and we pick it up perhaps when everyone is stronger. But status quos are not status quos and people know that. They either get better – or more commonly – they actually get worse because they are left neglected. I fear that this status quo, over the next 10 or 11 months if there isn’t some very significant policy activity, will deteriorate into violence.

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IPF Leadership Mission to Israel and the West Bank

Israel Policy Forum
Posted July 10, 2009 - 3:02pm

Last week, IPF Executive Director Nick Bunzl and President Peter Joseph returned from a leadership mission to Israel and the West Bank. They spent 3 days in high-level meetings in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the West Bank. To read their remarks, click here.

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The "Peace Process"

Submitted by mlame on July 12, 2009 - 6:21pm.

The report back from the IPF Leadership mission is a bit vague on the subject of negotiations between the Israeli government and the PA. According to Nick Bunzl's comments, your group heard from multiple sources "that the Olmert Abbas talks had progressed far and that the gaps were small", although "Abbas responded that the gaps were still 'large'." Without specifying what the gaps were, to say they were large or small is all spin.

At the conclusion of the Taba talks in January 2001, Shlomo Ben Ami and Abu Ala read the final communiqué which claimed that the parties "have never been so close to an accord." Yet they did not reach an accord. As the old American saying goes: Close, but no cigar.

To truly understand the state of negotiations between the two sides and whether a deal is possible in the near future, we need to know the specific areas of agreement and disagreement. The Newsweek article that you cite gives Olmert's version of what he offered to Abbas, which Erekat confirmed. The Palestinians "began to formulate a response" but there's no mention of what it consisted of and "time eventually ran out". So, apparently, it was never presented to the Israelis. 

Israelis and Palestinians have been negotiating, off and on, for over 15 years without yet reaching agreement on a single "final status" issue. Apart from the questions of a settlement freeze, Hamas, Obama, Arab countries, Iran, and all the rest, just how close are the Israeli and Palestinian political establishments to cutting a deal, and what exactly are the gaps that still need to be closed?

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