In his Sept. 14 op-ed column, “For Israel, a fall full of headaches,” David Ignatius wrote that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is “frustrated by the U.S. inability to budge [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and create a Palestinian state.”
In 2000, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected the Israeli-U.S. offer of a state on more than 95 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital, in exchange for peace. Arafat refused and started the bloody second intifada.
In 2001, Israel and the United States reiterated the proposed two-state solution. Arafat again rejected it and continued the violence.
In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered a Palestinian state on virtually all the West Bank and Gaza Strip to Mr. Abbas, Arafat’s successor. A third Palestinian rejection followed.
Mr. Netanyahu repeatedly, but futilely, has urged Mr. Abbas to return to talks. Israel is frustrated by Palestinian insistence on demanding a state outside the bilateral negotiations to which the Palestinian leadership pledged itself in the 1993 Oslo peace process.
Carol Greenwald, Chevy Chase, Md.
The writer is treasurer of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.