Luxembourg as honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians?

My Orchids. Phalaneopsis. Peace in Our Time.
Photo ET

Luxembourg as honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians?

The Jerusalem Post reports: "Prime Minister Bettel has invited me to Luxembourg, and he said the Palestinians might also come there," Netanyahu said. "Therefore, it's either Moscow or Luxembourg," he asserted in reference to a Russian-offered meeting between himself and Abbas that has yet to come to fruition. 

"We'll see, either one - or any other place," he added, reiterating that Israel is "always ready for direct negotiations without preconditions."

We probably have to chill out. Moscow might offer more. Unless a small unbiased partner (is Asselborn?) could try to bring both ends together.

We tried in the past. Actually in the early 70ies, King Hussein of Jordan came to Luxembourg in an attempt to try something. And on another occasion the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Abba Eban came too. Arafat’s PLO was still in active terror mode. So as a young Platoon leader in the Luxembourg Armed Forces I was assigned among many others to the security task force.

As such a mission was not the standard, soldiers had to be trained with some legal considerations when engaging a suspected terrorist. Which at the time was: “Shout Stop! If the suspect doesn’t obey shout again: Stop, or I open fire! If the suspect doesn’t stop his aggression, fire one shot in the air. If he still doesn’t stop, open fire at him!”

There was some silence. Then one of the men asked the perfect legal question: “Does it matter in which sequence we follow all those four steps?”