The Fatah government has rejected Mitchell’s entreaties to continue negotiations with Israel. Oddly, the Palestinians feel free to defy pressure from the United States, their leading donor and supporter.
Though most commentators concentrate on the Palestinian demand for a construction freeze in East Jerusalem, their more important demand is that negotiations be resumed where they left off in December 2008, when Olmert offered Abbas the widest concessions ever, including the destruction of dozens of Jewish villages and abandonment of the Temple Mount to the Muslim enemy.
Abbas wants more than that.
