President Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, arrived in Ramallah last night to begin "pre-talks" to the "proximity talks" the United States hopes will occur between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the National reports. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone who has much faith in their ultimate success.
Mitchell was due to meet with PA President Mahmoud Abbas to seek his approval for the proximity talks. Such indirect negotiations between Israel and Palestine, should they occur, are meant to get the two sides talking without really talking, since Israel has done next to nothing in the past year to assuage Palestinian cynicism about negotiations. The Arab League recently gave its blessing to proximity talks, allowing Abbas to save face if he agrees.
Understandably, many in the Arab world view the proximity talks as a farce. Walid Choucair of Al-Hayat called the process a "tragic-comedic spectacle," while Ahmad Yousef, the top political adviser to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah, said they were "cover for Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people," according to Ma'an News.
Aside from the obvious obstacle to serious negotiations -- Israel's refusal to abide by the settlement freeze that Obama called for in his May Cairo speech -- there's the blockade of Gaza, the continued construction of the security wall and, most recently, the designation of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a place of religious significance for both Jews and Muslims located in the southern West Bank, as a Israeli national heritage site.
So Mitchell will shuttle between Abbas, rightly skeptical of Israel's intentions, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who holds a dim view of making any concessions to the Palestinians. Get out your popcorn folks.
The one advantage, Choucair notes, is that the next few months of proximity talks, if they occur, will hopefully stave off armed conflict: "[I]t helps extend the period of diplomatic negotiation, compared to the war option, which has been promoted by the Israelis for the last two weeks, or by the secretary general of Hizbullah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, or by the Damascus summit that brought together Nasrallah, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Assad."
"In the end, Syria will also benefit from these four months, to dispel the specter of a war that it does not want, since this conflict, even if it is limited to Lebanon and Hizbullah, will represent a big challenge."
That being said, if Choucair reflects a broader Arab sentiment, then these proximity talks will be greeted with palpable impatience and anger.
"Isn't it time for the Arabs to shake things up amid a growing regional and international crisis and ask for something in return when it comes to the Palestinian issue, as a price for the other problems for which Washington wants political cover?
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Categories: Diplomacy, Israel, Israel & Palestine, Obama Administration, Palestine, Politics, Regional News
Tags: Ahmad Yousef, Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu, George Mitchell, Hamas, Israel, Israeli settlements, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestine, proximity talks, Walid Choucair
1 Comment
The most serious obstacle to serious negotiations for the last year has been Palestinian one sided refusal to continue negotiations, due to imposed pre-conditions.
Your text implies their pre-conditions are objective and imperative, while they are not. They are as political as any Israeli pre-condition would be.
Playing the settlements card is old and dishonest.
The Nethanyahu government effectively froze all settlement activities outside of Jerusalem, and is monitoring and disrupting new building going on.
It has to be mentioned that this pre condition is new, and is completely political. The Oslo peace accords, the Wye Plantation agreement, the Camp David peace talks, all took place without any settlement freeze.
Even as recently as 2008 The Olmert government held high-level talks and very serious negotiations on core issues, without any freeze. Olmert's offer is documented at:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1135699.html
Given the fact the settlement freeze is political in nature, unprecedented in the history of the peace process, and most importantly - is implemented for the most part - your statement of 'obvious' obstacles seems very odd.
Your mentioning of the security barrier is also not very up to date.
There is currently almost no new barrier construction due to funding problems. The only place where major building activity is planned is where it's path is to be changed in response to Palestinian petitions, so making an issue of that also seems to me dishonest.
Furthermore, mentioning it as an obstacle to peace talks is also not honest. Anyone familiar with the time-line can wittness the barrier is a result of the failure of negotiations, rather than the cause for it. The fence was built form 2002 and on, after the complete failure of any negotiations to achieve the stop of waves of suicide attacks.
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