The House of Wisdom for conflict resolution and governance organized a meeting with Dr. Moe’n Rabbani and Dr. Norman Finkelstein via SKYPE to discuss the report of the International Quartet on the French Peace proposal, the meeting was attended by a number of representatives of Palestinian factions, politicians, academicians and researchers, the meeting aimed to discuss the report issued by the International Quartet.
Dr. Ahmed Yousef opened the meeting and expressed the importance of such reports as they reflect the position of the international community towards the Palestinians cause, the weakness of the report refers to the weakness of the Palestinian leadership in performing any political progress that supports the Palestinian community.
Dr. Moe’n Rabbani, specialist in the Palestinian affairs and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, expressed his perspective basing on the International Quartet report and the methodology of preparing the report, saying that the United Nations, America and Europe have better understanding for the facts, so it could be said that there is a better understanding by the international community for facts on the real ground. The report had its publish postponed, he added “I have been under political pressure, the weakness point refers to the lack of resources to prepare stronger reports, the weakness mainly resulted from the Palestinian division and deteriorating of the Arab’s support”
Finally, Dr. Rabbani called Palestinians to use the International Quartet report as a winning card and seek to neutralize the International Quartet.
Dr. Norman Finkelstein, specialist in political science and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, said that it was not surprising that the report is very weak, this prevented the Palestinians from performing any political progress. The repot addressed the blockade on Gaza for only one time, when it recommended to remove the blockade by Israel, considering the safety of the Israeli citizens.
Dr. Finkelstein commented on the regional and international role “I do not see any international pressure to resolute the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, at the current time the Palestinian cause is dying, no effective regional powers are played. Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, all of them are with Israel, while Iran has other concerns with Syria, and the nuclear agreement, there is no international or Arabic pressure to resolute the conflict, if there was no pressure made by the Palestinians themselves, there would be no reason for the United Nations to put pressure on Israel.
