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A lesson in diplomacy

An op-ed piece in Haaretz which ought to be read by each Israeli cabinet minister:

"On Monday, Barak Ravid revealed to readers of this newspaper that the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem was considering punishing the Palestinians for their declaration of statehood by scrapping the Oslo Accords.

This "threat" is akin to a fellow saying he'll cut off his own nose to spite someone else's face. If the Oslo Accords did not exist, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have had to invent them.

The document, and in particular the section that confiscates 60 percent of the Palestinians' land in the West Bank (Area C ) and grants Israeli settlers exclusive access to it, should be placed in a safe by the right-wing and guarded by an elite army unit. And this is why this childish "threat," which has been hovering in the air ever since Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman first waved it at European Union Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton a month ago, is not making much of an impression on Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen ); the Palestinian president continues to gather international support for the UN vote expected to take place in September.

Netanyahu's advisors, who came up with the "threat," could learn a thing or two about diplomacy and the media from Abbas' staff. The last and most interesting lesson deals with neutralizing the land mine of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, which Netanyahu has placed at the Palestinians' feet."

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