‘Palestine’
“The mood is gloomy as the Middle East peace talks begin because neither side appears prepared to make the concessions that meaningful negotiations require No previous round of Middle East peace negotiations has begun with such rock-bottom expectations as the one being launched in Washington. Neither side expects to be able to reach an agreement unless the US tries to impose one. And few believe that if Barack Obama does attempt that, Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas will be able to live with it – the Israeli premier because of his fractious rightwing coalition and the Palestinian president because of Hamas opposition and wider despair over years of peace ‘process’ without change. Both sides prefer to continue the existing situation as long as they do not have to pay the costs that an agreement requires,” argued Nahum Barnea, the Israeli commentator. Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, was a tad more diplomatic. ‘We are hoping talks will succeed,” he said, “but we are all very pessimistic about the viability of the peace process because of past experience’. Still, convention – and deference to the US host – requires a polite suspension of belief. It was the same when George Bush convened the Annapolis conference in 2007 in a belated attempt to make up for ignoring the Israel-Palestine conflict for so long after 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. Scepticism was profound then too – even though everyone, including a Syrian minister, turned up for the group photographs at the launch of another process that predictably led nowhere slowly. On the face of it, little has changed since. The core issues of the conflict remain the same: West Bank settlements, the future of Jerusalem, final borders, Israel’s demand for recognition as a Jewish state and the Palestinians’ for their ‘right to return’. Overall, though, the situation is worse”
Iran • Israel • Palestine • United States
“The current sturm und drang in US-Israel relations cloaks a surprising development: President Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are beginning to develop a constructive working relationship sensitive to the legitimate concerns of the other. Israel’s Bureau of Statistics reported in May, for example, that in the first quarter of 2010 there were zero building starts in the West Bank settlements — a demand Obama had made at the outset of his administration. Since Vice President Biden’s embarrassing visit to Jerusalem in March, Netanyahu has quietly blocked new building tenders in East Jerusalem, demolitions of Palestinian housing and evictions of Palestinian residents there. Reciprocating, Obama recently announced an additional $205 million in military assistance to Israel to pay for the deployment of anti-rocket defense systems for Israeli border towns. Last month, Netanyahu praised the Obama administrationfor securing passage of the latest UN Security Council resolution ratcheting up sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program. Indeed, for a year now, the Israeli and American national security establishments have been coordinating closely to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions”
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