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Analysis: 'Groundhog Day' for MidEast peace process
From time to time, the Palestine
Center
distributes
articles it believes will enhance understanding
of the Palestinian
political
reality. The following article by Ben Wedeman
was
published in CNN.com
on 19 July
2010.
To view
this article online, please go to http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/07/19/wedeman.analysis.mideast.peace.talks/
"Analysis:
'Groundhog Day' for MidEast peace
process"
By Ben Wedeman
For some, it may have felt like
the diplomatic equivalent of Groundhog Day.
Officials, in Cairo, Egypt for another round of
talks in the never-ending Middle East peace
process.
Despite a spate of rumors about
his failing health, Sunday Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak had a busy schedule. First, he
met with U.S. Mideast Envoy George Mitchell,
then Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas and finally Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to the
Israeli daily Ha'aretz, the meeting between
Mubarak and Netanyahu was scheduled to last
four hours. Not bad for the 82-year-old
Egyptian leader. In any event, the meeting was
brief.
The main focus of the talks in
Cairo was to convince the Palestinians and
Israelis to move from, until now, largely
fruitless "proximity" or indirect talks to
direct negotiations.
Direct talks were
suspended in December 2008 when Israel launched
its offensive against Gaza. The 2009 election
of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, never a
peace process enthusiast, made reviving direct
talks all the more complicated.
George
Mitchell, a 77-year-old former senator and
diplomat, has been trying to coax the two sides
back to the table, but the prospects of
achieving that, in the words of one Egyptian
official I spoke with before the meetings, were
"not rosy."
The Palestinians argue that
as long as Israel continues to build
settlements in the West Bank, expand the Jewish
presence in East Jerusalem, and demolish
Palestinian homes in the city, direct talks are
impossible. They also insist that Israel accept
the June 1967 borders as a starting point for a
final peace settlement.
The Israelis say
that direct talks must go ahead, and only then
will Israel initiate confidence-building
measures.
Both Abbas and Netanyahu are
on shaky ground. Abbas' Fatah faction has
already said it opposes direct talks with
Israel, and Abbas has little room to
maneuver.
Netanyahu sits atop an
increasingly shaky coalition, grappling with a
foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who has
rankled the prime minister's office by
appointing an ambassador to the United Nations
without first consulting his boss. Any dramatic
move in the direction of the Palestinians could
cause his coalition to
collapse.
Mitchell has the unenviable
task of getting them to agree on something,
anything. So far, he's failed.
And this
is raising questions about the entire American
role in the peace process. Egyptian officials,
normally very careful when speaking with the
media, can't contain their
frustration.
The proximity talks "aren't
working because the Americans aren't doing
their job," said one official, who requested
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the
issue.
U.S. President Barack Obama's
administration came to power talking tough, he
noted, but not tough enough to compel the
Netanyahu government to freeze all settlement
activity in all Palestinian occupied territory,
including East Jerusalem.
After
President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu
met in Washington earlier this month for their
most cordial meeting yet, the official
complained: "Now we find the Americans talking
like the Israelis without any justifications."
The Obama administration, he concluded, is
"confused."
The U.S. says it is pushing
to narrow the divide and American diplomats
will almost certainly put a positive spin on
the talks that took place in Cairo Sunday. But
the reality is that, even if there is a peace
process to speak of, it's in miserable
shape.
It's an uneasy time in the Middle
East. On top of faltering peace efforts, there
are growing concerns there could be a strike on
Iran, whether by Israel, the U.S. or both, to
stop what they claim is Tehran's nuclear
weapons program.
Iraq is perpetually
wracked by violence, tensions are mounting
between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel, and
there is profound uncertainty about the health
of Egypt's Mubarak, one of the Arab world's
longest-serving rulers and a pillar of American
policy in the region.
On the other hand,
the U.S. is distracted by a profound economic
crisis, partisan political battles, mounting
losses in a costly Afghan war, and an
environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of
Mexico. It's not surprising that the Middle
East peace doesn't appear to be Washington's
top priority at the moment.
The problem
is, when you put the Middle East on the back
burner, it often breaks into
flames.
The
views
expressed in this article are those of the
author and do not
necessarily
reflect
those of The Jerusalem
Fund.
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