Navigate to News section

Daybreak: Abbas Walks the Tightrope

Plus a new West Bank? and more in the news

by
Marc Tracy
August 31, 2010
President Abbas.(Omar Rashidi/PPO via Getty Images)
President Abbas.(Omar Rashidi/PPO via Getty Images)

• The person risking the most in participating in upcoming talks is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who could lose control of Fatah and whose Fatah could lose power to Hamas. [LAT]

• By contrast, Prime Minister Netanyahu reassured party members that he knows where the redlines are and he won’t cross them. [JPost]

• Abbas and Defense Minister Barak met secretly in Amman over the weekend concerning the talks. [JTA]

• The New York Times editorializes for peace, among other things calling on Netanyahu to continue to halt settlement-building. [NYT]

• With its basic security and services, the West Bank is beginning to feel like an actual state—and that may be the one advantage compared to past talks. [NYT]

• Richard Cohen argues that we are in many ways stuck in the long-settled debate of whether Israel should exist. [WP]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.