Yasser Arafat is Still Dead

Matthew Duss takes issue with Martin Kramer's invocation of the idea that because Yasser Arafat rejected peace deals in the waning days of Ehud Barak's premiership, the parameters worked out there are unworkable. However, he misses the obvious point that Arafat is dead, and any new negotiations will take place with his successor, Mahmood Abbas, a man who was in 2003 the cornerstone of the Bush administration's plans to sideline Arafat. Abbas's government poses its own challenges for a peace process, sure, but at the very least we should be discussing those rather than basing our policy off what a different Palestinian leader did with a different Israeli leader almost a decade ago.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)