ianstone
09-01-2010, 01:42 PM
Obama vows Hebron killings will not deflect pursuit of peace
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/01/obama-hebron-killings-peace-talks#history-link-box)
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/9/1/1283342694876/Binyamin-Netanyahu-Barack-006.jpg Middle East talks: Obama with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, at a trilateral meeting in New York in September last year. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images Barack Obama (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barack-obama) has said the "senseless slaughter" of four Israeli settlers in the West Bank by "terrorists who want to undermine" his launch of negotiations to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not deter the pursuit of a peace agreement.
Speaking after a meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/binyamin-netanyahu), the US president said the killings near Hebron, one of which was of a pregnant woman, reaffirmed the need for his attempt to end the decades-long conflict within a year.
But while Netanyahu welcomed Obama's condemnation of the killings, the Israeli leader said it emphasised the need for the Jewish state to put its own security first.
"The talks which we had, which were indeed open, productive, serious in the quest for peace, also centered around the need to have security arrangements that are able to roll back this kind of terror and other threats to Israel (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israel)'s security," he said. "That is a fundamental element, an important foundation of the peace that we seek and work for."
Obama is expected to meet other Middle Eastern leaders – the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/mahmoud-abbas), the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, and King Abdullah of Jordan (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/jordan) – in turn during the day.
The president will host a dinner this evening for the four men and Tony Blair (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/tonyblair), the envoy for the "quartet" of the US, UN, EU and Russia, before face-to-face discussions between the Israelis and Palestinians begin at the state department in Washington tomorrow.
Yet some of the most important players will be absent from the table, including the hardline Jewish settler leaders who have vowed not to give up an inch of the land they regard as a God-given right, and Hamas (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/hamas), which is refusing western demands on it to renounce violence or recognise Israel before it can be brought in to the diplomatic process.
The talks are seen as a test not only of the sincerity of Israeli and Palestinian claims to want to reach an agreement, but also of Obama's willingness to take the political risks and exert the pressure that some see as essential if a deal is to be done.
The US administration has angered some of Israel's supporters by breaking with its predecessor in describing the failure to resolve the conflict as a cause of continued instability in the Middle East (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast) and a threat to America's national security.
Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, said yesterday time was running out for the possibility of a two-state solution and warned that the alternative to an agreement was likely to be more violence.
"I believe that it is an awareness of these and other realities by the two leaders and their leadership that there is a window of opportunity, a moment in time within which there remains the possibility of achieving the two-state solution, which is so essential to comprehensive peace in the region," he said.
Some former officials who have been involved in previous peace negotiations are concerned that Obama has so far failed to distinguish his push for a peace settlement from the failed efforts of the past.
"People don't think there's an Obama-specific approach," said Daniel Levy, a former adviser to an earlier Israeli prime minster and an architect of the Geneva Initiative peace plan. "There isn't a way of going about trying to do this that this administration has made its own and has wrapped its arms around. You're seeing a very similar approach to what we've seen in the past, an approach that didn't deliver."
Levy warned that "the script for now is still being written more by the Netanyahu government than the Obama administration". He said the White House would have to be particularly careful not to be seen – as Aaron David Miller, a former US negotiator in the conflict, once put it – as acting as "Israel's lawyer" by exerting more pressure on the Palestinians than the Israelis, because it appeared that Abbas is in the weaker position.
"The question is at what stage do you twist the Palestinian arm so much that you're left carrying that arm and very little else," said Levy. "There might be, whether it's Netanyahu or a different collection of forces in Israel, an Israeli yes to getting this done, trying to find its way out. That Israeli yes won't come out on its own, and we're going to have to perform a C-section in order to get it out. The only surgeon available to perform that C-section is the Obama administration."
Mitchell said he recognised that a different approach was needed. One possible approach was the setting of a one-year deadline for talks. "People ask whether the long history of negotiation has been beneficial or harmful," he said. "It's actually been both, in some respects.
"Beneficial in the sense that this has been discussed so often that people have a good sense of what the principal issues are and how they might be resolved; harmful in the sense that it has created attitudes among many in the region that it's a never-ending process. So it's very important to create a sense that this has a definite concluding point."
The first item up for discussion will be the agenda. Theoretically, all major issues are on the table including borders, the division of Jerusalem and measures to guarantee Israel's security. But the Palestinians are already bristling at what they see as Israeli pre-conditions after Netanyahu said there could be no movement unless the Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state, a move that has implications for the question of the return of Palestinian refugees living in neighbouring countries.
Abbas will also be pressing Netanyahu for an extension of the partial freeze on Jewish settlement construction that expires later this month and which is seen as a test of Israeli sincerity.
Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel, said the reduction in Palestinian attacks on Israel and the slowing of settlement construction meant talks might succeed now where they had failed in the past. He said there was public support on both sides for a two-state solution, even if minorities were strongly opposed.
"In the 17 years since the Oslo accords were signed, detailed final-status negotiations have dealt exhaustively with all the critical issues. If an independent Palestinian state is to be established, the zone of agreement is clear and the necessary trade-offs are already known," Indyk wrote in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/opinion/27indyk.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Indyk&st=cse). "In short, the negotiating environment is better suited to peacemaking today than it has been at any point in the last decade. The prospects for peace depend now on the willpower of the leaders."
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/01/obama-hebron-killings-peace-talks#history-link-box)
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/9/1/1283342694876/Binyamin-Netanyahu-Barack-006.jpg Middle East talks: Obama with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, at a trilateral meeting in New York in September last year. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images Barack Obama (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barack-obama) has said the "senseless slaughter" of four Israeli settlers in the West Bank by "terrorists who want to undermine" his launch of negotiations to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not deter the pursuit of a peace agreement.
Speaking after a meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/binyamin-netanyahu), the US president said the killings near Hebron, one of which was of a pregnant woman, reaffirmed the need for his attempt to end the decades-long conflict within a year.
But while Netanyahu welcomed Obama's condemnation of the killings, the Israeli leader said it emphasised the need for the Jewish state to put its own security first.
"The talks which we had, which were indeed open, productive, serious in the quest for peace, also centered around the need to have security arrangements that are able to roll back this kind of terror and other threats to Israel (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israel)'s security," he said. "That is a fundamental element, an important foundation of the peace that we seek and work for."
Obama is expected to meet other Middle Eastern leaders – the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/mahmoud-abbas), the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, and King Abdullah of Jordan (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/jordan) – in turn during the day.
The president will host a dinner this evening for the four men and Tony Blair (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/tonyblair), the envoy for the "quartet" of the US, UN, EU and Russia, before face-to-face discussions between the Israelis and Palestinians begin at the state department in Washington tomorrow.
Yet some of the most important players will be absent from the table, including the hardline Jewish settler leaders who have vowed not to give up an inch of the land they regard as a God-given right, and Hamas (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/hamas), which is refusing western demands on it to renounce violence or recognise Israel before it can be brought in to the diplomatic process.
The talks are seen as a test not only of the sincerity of Israeli and Palestinian claims to want to reach an agreement, but also of Obama's willingness to take the political risks and exert the pressure that some see as essential if a deal is to be done.
The US administration has angered some of Israel's supporters by breaking with its predecessor in describing the failure to resolve the conflict as a cause of continued instability in the Middle East (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast) and a threat to America's national security.
Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, said yesterday time was running out for the possibility of a two-state solution and warned that the alternative to an agreement was likely to be more violence.
"I believe that it is an awareness of these and other realities by the two leaders and their leadership that there is a window of opportunity, a moment in time within which there remains the possibility of achieving the two-state solution, which is so essential to comprehensive peace in the region," he said.
Some former officials who have been involved in previous peace negotiations are concerned that Obama has so far failed to distinguish his push for a peace settlement from the failed efforts of the past.
"People don't think there's an Obama-specific approach," said Daniel Levy, a former adviser to an earlier Israeli prime minster and an architect of the Geneva Initiative peace plan. "There isn't a way of going about trying to do this that this administration has made its own and has wrapped its arms around. You're seeing a very similar approach to what we've seen in the past, an approach that didn't deliver."
Levy warned that "the script for now is still being written more by the Netanyahu government than the Obama administration". He said the White House would have to be particularly careful not to be seen – as Aaron David Miller, a former US negotiator in the conflict, once put it – as acting as "Israel's lawyer" by exerting more pressure on the Palestinians than the Israelis, because it appeared that Abbas is in the weaker position.
"The question is at what stage do you twist the Palestinian arm so much that you're left carrying that arm and very little else," said Levy. "There might be, whether it's Netanyahu or a different collection of forces in Israel, an Israeli yes to getting this done, trying to find its way out. That Israeli yes won't come out on its own, and we're going to have to perform a C-section in order to get it out. The only surgeon available to perform that C-section is the Obama administration."
Mitchell said he recognised that a different approach was needed. One possible approach was the setting of a one-year deadline for talks. "People ask whether the long history of negotiation has been beneficial or harmful," he said. "It's actually been both, in some respects.
"Beneficial in the sense that this has been discussed so often that people have a good sense of what the principal issues are and how they might be resolved; harmful in the sense that it has created attitudes among many in the region that it's a never-ending process. So it's very important to create a sense that this has a definite concluding point."
The first item up for discussion will be the agenda. Theoretically, all major issues are on the table including borders, the division of Jerusalem and measures to guarantee Israel's security. But the Palestinians are already bristling at what they see as Israeli pre-conditions after Netanyahu said there could be no movement unless the Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state, a move that has implications for the question of the return of Palestinian refugees living in neighbouring countries.
Abbas will also be pressing Netanyahu for an extension of the partial freeze on Jewish settlement construction that expires later this month and which is seen as a test of Israeli sincerity.
Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel, said the reduction in Palestinian attacks on Israel and the slowing of settlement construction meant talks might succeed now where they had failed in the past. He said there was public support on both sides for a two-state solution, even if minorities were strongly opposed.
"In the 17 years since the Oslo accords were signed, detailed final-status negotiations have dealt exhaustively with all the critical issues. If an independent Palestinian state is to be established, the zone of agreement is clear and the necessary trade-offs are already known," Indyk wrote in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/opinion/27indyk.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Indyk&st=cse). "In short, the negotiating environment is better suited to peacemaking today than it has been at any point in the last decade. The prospects for peace depend now on the willpower of the leaders."