Bill Clinton: Young Americans can't believe what Arafat walked away from
Former US President Bill Clinton says what has happened in the Middle East in the last 25 years "is one of the great tragedies of the 21st century” and has a poignant message for the Arabs: You walk away from these once-in-a-lifetime peace opportunities, and you can’t complain 25 years later.
Dec 6, 2024, 12:21 AM (GMT+2)
peace processBill ClintonYasser ArafatBenjamin Netanyahu
Former US President Bill Clinton on Wednesday gave an interview to Andrew Ross Sorkin at the 2024 New York Times DealBook Summit, in which he made some notable comments about Israel, the peace process with the Palestinian Arabs, and about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he claimed had been given a “lifeline” after the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023.
Asked how long he thinks Netanyahu will remain in his role, Clinton replied, “Well, he’s been there longer than I thought he would be already, but once the attacks in Gaza from Hamas, it was a lifeline to Bibi. In the beginning it hurt him, because the IDF was not ready, all the fights that were going on within Israel about the rule of law and all the issues there made them more vulnerable…but he was in office, and he had a narrow parliamentary majority, and an otherwise very fragile political coalition got stronger because of what happened on October 7. And he was the commander-in-chief if you will, and he fought it back.”
Clinton then went on to speak about the failure to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs going back to his time as President, saying, “I think what’s happened there in the last 25 years is one of the great tragedies of the 21st century.”
“When I tell young people in America who say they are super sympathetic with the Palestinians - a lot of those Palestinians have been killed and all [these young Americans] know is there are a lot more Palestinians who have been killed than Israelis,” continued the former President. “And I tell them what [the late PLO leader Yasser] Arafat walked away from, and they can’t believe it.”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/400302
