Apportioning blame

Three guesses as to who gets the lion's share of the blame for the stalled peace process.

AS CLICHÉS go, one of the most dismal is that the idea of two states, Israeli and Palestinian, co-existing peacefully side by side is dead and should be buried. In the past four years on Barack Obama’s watch it has certainly been moribund. The Palestinian leadership has been divided, with Fatah in the West Bank weak and hesitant and Hamas in Gaza unyielding and occasionally violent. But most of the blame falls on Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who reluctantly endorsed the two-state idea in 2009 but has since done nothing to bring it about.
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Jake in Jerusalem comments:

The author's claim that "most of the blame falls on Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who reluctantly endorsed the two-state idea in 2009 but has since done nothing to bring it about" is simply scurrilous slander that is divorced from the facts.
It was the US President, and not the Pali Authority, that demanded that Jews - and only Jews - be forbidden from building new apartments or renovating existing structures in Disputed Territories. (Such a frankly bigoted restriction on Jews or others would never be accepted inside the USA but the POTUS didn't mind imposing it on Israel.) PM Netanyahu agreed to the unprecedented demand by the USA. The Palis, amazed to find the POTUS had even greater demands on Israel than they had, closed up and then refused to even talk to the Jews. After Israel's 10-month commitment expired and the White House wasted all that time by not pressing the Palis to meet Israel for negotiations, Israel unfroze construction. (Many Israeli families lost money and were seriously hurt during the freeze by the inability to continue building according to existing plans.)
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