This time might be for real: 'Peace process' on verge of collapse, Obama may go 'all or nothing'
U.S. pessimism started about 10 days ago. Meetings between Kerry and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris were the watershed. When Abbas returned from Paris, Ilan Baruch – the political adviser to MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) – talked to a number of Abbas’ advisers.
He heard anger mixed with disappointment, and that the process was on the verge of collapsing.
MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta’al) last week brought similar messages back to a number of officials at the Knesset, including Livni, after returning from a meeting with Abbas in Ramallah. Livni, who is devoting all her time to preventing a failure of the American peace initiative, is said to be very concerned.
It is unclear whether Kerry made a mistake in understanding the positions and maneuvering room of Abbas, or if the Palestinian president hardened his line suddenly. The bottom line is that the talks in Paris revealed how far away a framework agreement is.
Herzog met with Kerry and U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice and encouraged them to keep on working toward an agreement. Herzog told Kerry not to be concerned about noisy protests from the Israeli right, who, Herzog said, “don’t represent the atmosphere in the Israeli street.”
It is difficult to overstate the critical nature of the deadline at the end of March. This is the date when the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners is released. The Americans believes that if understandings about the agreement are not attained by then, it will be very difficult to go through with the release. The result will be a breakdown of the entire process.
As a result, efforts are persisting more intensely than ever.
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The Americans are looking for ways to square the circle and arrive at proposals that both Netanyahu and Abbas can live with. After reaching certain understandings with Netanyahu, they found they were still far from what Abbas is prepared to accept. A senior Israeli official said one conclusion the Americans have reached from talks with Abbas is that they must adopt a more balanced proposal and persuade Netanyahu to be a bit more flexible, so as to give the Palestinian president room to maneuver allowing him to say yes.
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A senior Israeli official intimately involved in the talks said some of Obama’s top advisers are considering a dramatic all-or-nothing move – setting out an American document with principles for solutions to the core issues. Netanyahu and Abbas will have to say yes or no to it. If the answer is no, the Americans will leave the peace process until the parties agree.What could go wrong?
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, Tzipi Livni, Yitzchak Herzog, Zehava Gal-On
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:35 PM
2 Comments:
It's hard to tease out the actual words and meaning but today Obama appears to have announced that unless the Jews knuckle under and capitulate the US will no longer 'defend' Israel. Now again it's hard to understand what precisely that means. But more widely, if he's offering the Jews extinction one way vs another they may as well go their own way and take their chances.
Uh, that last line, that the americans will leave the "piece" process a threat or a promise?
That would probably be the best thing that could happen for israel ...
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