My suspicion is that the Palestinian Authority views "proximity talks" as a test for the Obama administration's willingness to impose consequences on Israel. PA officials have hinted at using the talks to "reveal Israel's true intentions to the world."
And the administration seems to understand that dynamic: Ha'aretz reports this morning that Washington "will assign blame" if the talks fall apart.
The Arab League -- meeting today in Cairo -- voted to endorse "proximity talks" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. American mediators, presumably led by George Mitchell, will shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
I'm not even really sure where to begin writing about the latest on the Mahmoud al-Mabhouh assassination. The story really jumped into the spotlight today, largely because of the revelation that more than half of the 11 people wanted for Mabhouh's murder used real identities -- but fake passports.
Dubai police identified six of Mabhouh's killers as British passport holders Michael Lawrence Barney, James Leonard Clarke, Jonathan Louis Graham, Paul John Keeley, Stephen Daniel Hodes, and Melvyn Adam Mildiner.
And it turns out that all six are real people -- British citizens living in Israel. The killers used their identities on forged passports; the names, birthdays and other biographical information were accurate, but the signatures and photographs were not, according to British authorities. Mildiner actually appeared on Israel's Channel 10 news today, and said he hasn't left the country in two years.
The Dubai police department today released photos of the 11 people allegedly responsible for assassinating Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh last month -- and the chief of police says he's close to issuing arrest warrants for the group.
Everyone in the group held European passports, according to police: six British, three Irish, one French and one German. The lone woman in the group had an Irish passport. The Ma'an News Agency (عربي) and Al-Jazeera (عربي) both report that the group included two Palestinians; one of them reportedly met with the group's leader, a Frenchman named Peter.
Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai's police chief, says both Palestinians were arrested in the UAE as they were leaving for trips to China and the Sudan. Tamim said one of them acted as a "spotter" for the assassination.
Well -- not exactly. The Palestinian Authority announced today (عربي) that it arrested six "al-Qaeda sympathizers"; the men reportedly had a cache of explosives and were planning to attack targets in the West Bank.
But Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Ramadan, the head of preventive security in Jenin, said that men have no known connections to al-Qaeda. They're allegedly inspired by Osama bin Laden -- but they were operating autonomously.
As a postscript to last week's, uh, post about Salam Fayyad's Herzliya speech, Abdel Bari Atwan has an absolutely savage column (عربي) in today's Al-Quds Al-Arabi. For Arabic speakers, the whole thing is worth a read -- it does a good job capturing the disconnect between the Palestinian Authority's official position on peace talks and the Palestinian public's opinion.
Obama's State of the Union address last night didn't spend much time on foreign policy, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict didn't come up once. White House officials weren't even thinking about it: On a conference call with reporters before the speech, press secretary Robert Gibbs said he "didn't remember" whether the Middle East process was included in the text.
It came up today, though, in a town hall meeting in Tampa, Florida. A woman in the audience asked Obama a pointed question about U.S. policy in the region.
Palestinian officials are reportedly considering a proposal (عربي) for direct -- but low-level -- talks with Israel.
Israeli and Arab media say George Mitchell suggested the talks during his visit to the region last week. A team of ministers from both sides would discuss "confidence-building measures," like the transfer of territory from Israeli to Palestinian security control. The meetings would not include Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
The U.S. is reportedly pressuring Abbas to restart talks, either directly at a lower level, or indirectly (through Mitchell) at a high level.
Israel's Channel 10 news reported yesterday on the peace deal Ehud Olmert offered to the Palestinian Authority in 2008. The channel also described a separate deal offered by then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni, which was apparently less generous than Olmert's offer.
Both reports come just days after Olmert's lengthy interview with The Australian (which we analyzed last week).
So here's my question. The Israeli PR machine is obviously trying hard to push this story; why? Olmert, I'm sure, is trying to rehabilitate his corruption-stained image. But is there a broader political goal here, too? Like trying to portray the PA as obstructionist?
You can see the broad outlines of Netanyahu's 2010 strategy emerging: He claims that the PA ignored his unprecedented partial settlement freeze, just like it ignored Olmert's and Livni's peace offerings in 2008; he condemns it for refusing to negotiate; and he writes off any further meaningful talks.
That's the word from Gaza's health ministry, which confirmed today that five people have been infected with swine flu. Authorities are concerned about a possible outbreak, because the Gaza government only has about 1,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine -- not enough to vaccinate Gaza's 8,000 health care workers, let alone the general population.
Officials in Gaza blame the shortage on the Hamas-Fatah rivalry: They say the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank has more vaccine, but refuses to send additional doses.
Gaza's medical infrastructure is in tatters because of the years-long Israeli embargo -- though, ironically, the embargo is also responsible for keeping the virus out of Gaza until now.
One of our regular commenters, the enigmatic "i," makes this point about yesterday's post on settlement expansion in the West Bank:
None of the settlements you mentioned are going to be part of a Palestinian state. So, this post is rather strange.
It's true: Most if not all of the settlements in question will become part of Israel in any two-state peace deal. But they're still settlements -- meaning that they're on the wrong side of the Green Line -- so any new construction will be viewed as undermining Israel's partial settlement freeze.
I guess the timing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement of a 10-month partial settlement "freeze" should come as no surprise, heading as we are into a long holiday weekend when everyone will be so comatose on tryptophan that a news crawl at the bottom of CNN mentioning Bibi's "freeze" will only seem like a positive contribution by Israel to the peace process.
But the "freeze" can't be very encouraging for the Palestinians, whose hopes were raised after President Obama's Cairo speech and who now see that Netanyahu's administration has squirmed out from beneath the firm demand for a total freeze that started this whole thing. I don't see any official response from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas out on the wires yet, but this AFP story from yesterday probably sums up what he's feeling:
US President Barack Obama is "doing nothing right now" to restart the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said in an interview published Tuesday.
We haven't written about a possible Gilad Shalit deal in, oh, two months, so I think we're long overdue for some speculation.
Reports today say Shalit could be released by the end of the week, in exchange for several hundred Palestinian prisoners. Israel reportedly agreed to free an extra 160 prisoners whose release had been previously vetoed. (That means they're probably militants.) The deal could happen as soon as Friday, the start of Eid al-Adha, according to reports.
Hamas officials are in Cairo today for a meeting with Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian intelligence chief, to discuss the deal.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has been on something of a media blitz lately.
He sat down with the BBC's Arabic service yesterday -- video is embedded after the jump -- and claimed that Israel is negotiating with Hamas to create a Palestinian state with temporary borders. Hamas has denied the allegation; Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the group, said Abbas is "putting his personal political failure on Hamas."
Benjamin Netanyahu -- who apparently does not lack a sense of irony -- will reportedly propose a partial settlement freeze soon, just days after approving 900 new homes in the Gilo settlement. Take it away, Ha'aretz:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is soon going to announce a complete freeze in West Bank settlement construction for 10 months, Army Radio quoted former Meretz chairman Yossi Beilin as saying on Wednesday.
Let's make a few bold predictions about what happens next! Netanyahu's offer won't include East Jerusalem, so the Palestinians will reject it. Netanyahu will claim that Abbas is being an obstructionist. George Mitchell will rack up some more frequent-flyer miles shuttling to Cairo and Jerusalem and Amman. (Dude's gotta be real close to a free vacation by now.)
A month later, Israel will build some more apartments in Gilo or demolish some more Palestinian homes in Sheikh Jarrah. The U.S. will be dismayed -- perhaps even frustrated! And the whole cycle will repeat. Sound familiar?
Saeb Erekat told AFP today that the Palestinian Authority will definitely ask the U.N. Security Council to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
"We have reached a decision... to go to the UN Security Council to ask for recognition of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and with June 1967 borders," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.
That marks a shift from just 24 hours ago, when Erekat floated the idea in an interview with the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam. Erekat said yesterday that the PA was "mobilizing support" for the idea,
Commenter Tom, responding to our post on Saeb Erekat's plan to ask the U.N. to recognize a Palestinian state, raises a great question:
What would be the Israeli response to a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood? I have an idea of what it wouldn't do, but what would the actual response be? Invade the West Bank? Physically dismantle what's left of the PA?
Honest answer: I'm not sure! The Israeli government really hasn't talked too much about this issue.
I just read Tom Friedman's column from yesterday, and I actually found myself nodding along with much of it. (This is the second time in a month I have agreed with a Friedman column. I will report for reeducation immediately.) Key quote:
Let's just get out of the picture. Let all these leaders stand in front of their own people and tell them the truth: "My fellow citizens: Nothing is happening; nothing is going to happen. It's just you and me and the problem we own."
Indeed, it's time for us to dust off James Baker's line: "When you're serious, give us a call: 202-456-1414. Ask for Barack. Otherwise, stay out of our lives. We have our own country to fix."
U.S. media have spent the last 24 hours focused on Hillary Clinton's assertion that Israeli settlements are "illegitimate" (a rather insignificant statement, in our view).
Far less attention was paid to remarks by Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, who told reporters yesterday that the Palestinian Authority might have to start pushing for a one-state solution.
U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton is in Marrakech today for what could be a contentious series of meetings with Arab foreign ministers.
The issue is a remark she made Saturday during a press conference with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"What the prime minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements which he has just described -- no new starts, for example -- is unprecedented in the context of prior-to negotiations," she said at the news conference.
Make no mistake: This was a big diplomatic goof by the secretary.
