Really. American Jews felt the need to tell Netanyahu that Obama was for peace, and Netanyahu should be also.
Prior to the April, 2013 letter, the IPFolks sent a scorching letter to the Israeli prime minister in the summer of 2010. This one was about the Levy Report (although few could have read it, as it was not available in English).
The Levy Report, headed by a former Israeli Supreme Court justice Edmund Levy, concluded that Israel’s presence in the area widely referred to as the West Bank does not constitute occupation, and that Israeli towns and villages in that area are not illegal. The IPF folks did not care for that Report one little bit and they felt the need to inveigh against its conclusions.
Of the many signers of the IPF letter, only one has held public office. Mel Levine was a member of the California Assembly for five years, and then was a U.S. congressman. He left office in 1993.
A few of the IPF letter signers have been active in diplomatic efforts towards achieving peace in the Middle East. For example, Tom Dine, for years worked on what was called the “Syria track.”
Speaking at the 2011 J Street Conference, Dine insisted there was no way to achieve a bilateral peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Instead, he urged, the only way to make peace between the parties was through a “regional peace plan” which “had to pass through Syria.” So much for that theory.
And like Dine’s supremely wrong-headed diplomatic focus, the divided leadership of the Palestinian Arabs just this week revealed how far off the IPF folks are in their “hope” that Abbas will follow Netanyahu if he’d only get on that peace train.
No matter what Netanyahu – or even Kerry – does, there is simply not a chance that Abbas can agree to anything other than Israel accepting everyone of their conditions, and agreeing to forfeit all of Israel’s conditions.
Even the IPF supporters must acknowledge that Abbas is in the tenth year of his four year term. That means that even if he were inclined to agree to anything less than a total victory, while Israel will be forced to uphold its end of the deal, Hamas and other Palestinian Arab groups will deny the legitimacy of any Arab concessions.