Palestine – Israel

Regarding Mr Subhi Awad’s letter (July 3), perhaps Mr Awad could specify a single concession that the Palestinian side has made and honoured?

At the Camp David negotiations in 2000, Yasser Arafat walked away from the talks and started the massive wave of terrorism, involving the deaths of over a thousand innocent Israelis.

In 2006, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert made a comprehensive offer to the Palestinians including land swaps and accepting 150,000 descendants of 1948 refugees into Israel, the rest being allowed into the West Bank and Gaza. Mahmoud Abbas asked for a map, which was provided. Abbas left the talks and has never given an answer to the proposal.

The Palestinians rejected peace overtures made by the British in 1939, by the UN Partition Plan of 1947, the Armistice of 1948 and then played for gains in the Oslo Process in the 1990s.

In 2010 Israel agreed to a construction freeze for nine months that Obama promised would bring the Palestinians to the table – it didn’t.

Israel has never once ended these negotiations.

Danny Wakil, Billinudgel (in Echo NetDaily).