Former US President Bill Clinton, who oversaw the bulk of existing Israeli-Palestinian peace deals, has reiterated that the Palestinian leadership is to blame for the lack of a final status agreement.
“I killed myself to give the Palestinians a state,” said Clinton while campaigning for his wife last Friday. “I had a deal they turned down…”
It wasn’t the first time Bill Clinton had called out the Palestinian leadership for scuttling genuine peace efforts.
In his memoirs, the former president revealed that it was Yasser Arafat who prevented the high-profile Camp David talks in 2000 from resulting in an agreement. In fact, just months later the Palestinians launched the “Second Intifada.”
Clinton’s remarks on Friday came in response to a heckler who took exception to his message, shouting, “They were human beings in Gaza,” the audience member said.
“Yes, they were,” Clinton said. “And Hamas is really smart. When they decide to rocket Israel, they insinuate themselves in the hospitals, in the schools, in the highly populous areas, and they are smart.”
The line prompted applause, and he continued: “They said they try to put the Israelis in a position of either not defending themselves or killing innocents. They’re good at it. They’re smart. They’ve been doing this a long time.”
