Why the 'Washington process' collapsed
If hearing it from Mordechai Keidar - a Right winger - wasn't enough, perhaps hearing it from Yossi Alpher - a relatively sane Left winger - will be.The peace process launched in Washington on September 1 essentially collapsed before it began. The ambitious goal of ending the entire conflict within a year, proclaimed by the Obama administration and the Quartet and endorsed by both Netanyahu and Abbas, is totally unrealistic, thereby putting undue pressure on the negotiating parties. Following upon the administration’s misguided and myopic focus on a settlement freeze, it casts heavy doubt on Washington’s grasp of this conflict.Yes, that's been it all along, hasn't it? There is no fierce, moral urgency to create a 'Palestinian state.' Or at least it's not urgent enough to expect the 'Palestinians' to make any concessions. Once you recognize that, you realize that deadlines - and maybe even 'negotiations' except as a means for keeping the lid on violence - are pointless.
Perhaps even more pathetic is the current U.S. effort to entice Netanyahu into an additional, final freeze of two or three months so the direct talks can resume. The link between this time-span and the November 2 midterm elections in the U.S. is painfully transparent. The stewardship of Obama, Clinton and Mitchell clearly suffers from a failure to recognize what, if anything, is feasible and what is delusional in Israeli-Palestinian relations.
No, the whole point was and is scoring points for Obama in the elections. Hopefully now, that is painfully obvious to everyone.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:31 PM
2 Comments:
Carl, imo it is obvious that the "Judaize"-phobic Palestinians cannot resist using negotiations as a pretext to waylay everyone in the room, gaming the process to force unilateral concessions on Israel. Still, we can't be certain that non-negotiation will indefinitely freeze the situation. The Palis will continue doing their thing regardless--unfortunately the Obamiis are either amateurishly unreliable or antagonistic --the shift from "no preconditions" to "two-month extension please" was not persuasive.
The entire peace process's sole purpose was to make Obama look good for the mid-term elections.
The parties themselves don't want it. Its something when a leftist like Yossi Alpher and Haaretz's Walla website can see the hand-writing on the wall.
To this, the Obama Administration and the Western media remain oblivious.
What could go wrong indeed
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