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Peace process in crisis; Palestinians doubt U.S.

09 December 2010 04:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The Palestinians on Wednesday said "Israeli obstinacy" made Washington give up on efforts to freeze Jewish settlement and questioned whether the United States could ever help them attain independence, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
Senior Palestinian official Yasser Abed Rabbo said that with its bid to revive direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations now at a dead-end, the United States was proposing a return to indirect talks to try to unstick a peace process in deep crisis.
The Palestinians had demanded a halt to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem before agreeing to resume direct talks in pursuit of the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Under U.S. stewardship, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders held three rounds of talks in September. But the Palestinians pulled out when Israel’s 10-month freeze on West Bank settlement building expired at the end of that month.
Israel says a settlement freeze was a precondition that never existed in previous stages of the 20-year-old peace process, and blames Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for taking too long to sit down for talks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the moratorium in November 2009.
The freeze had not officially included East Jerusalem, one of Abbas’s conditions, although building was quietly halted there as well in the spring of 2010.
U.S. CREDIBILITY HIT
The U.S. announcement was a big setback for President Barack Obama, who believes settling the Middle East conflict is "a vital national security interest." When launching the talks in September, Obama said he hoped to have a deal signed in a year.
The U.S. failure would "cost it in the region," said Samih Shabib, a political scientist at Birzeit University near Ramallah. "Its credibility has become very weak among the Palestinians and Arabs," he said.
Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Abbas, said in an interview with Voice of Palestine radio that U.S. policy had changed "because of Israeli obstinacy and rejection."
If the United States could not get Israel to halt settlement "for a limited period," how would it be able "to make Israel accept a balanced solution on the foundation of international resolutions and the two-state solution?," he asked.
U.S. officials said Israel had been willing to extend the moratorium on West Bank construction but not in and around East Jerusalem -- land it views as part of its capital.
Hamas, the Islamist group which is hostile to Israel, said "American backtracking" indicated the failure of the peace process. It called on its rivals in the Palestinian Authority to declare an irreversible halt to negotiations.
BACK TO THE SHUTTLE
U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity on Tuesday gave three reasons for giving up on a settlement freeze.
First was that Israel would not halt building in East Jerusalem. Second was a concern that unless sufficient progress was made during a temporary freeze of 90 days, mediators could end up in the same place as they started. Third was concern over the generosity of incentives Washington had offered Israel for a temporary extension. Israeli sources said these had included 20 F-35 stealth fighters worth $3 billion.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel remained determined in its "commitment to continue the current effort to achieve a historic peace agreement with the Palestinians."
European Union foreign affairs chief Catherin Ashton said through a spokeswoman that "the Israelis have not been in a position to accept an extension of the moratorium."
"Our views on settlements are clear: they are illegal under international law and an obstacle to peace," she said.
Officials in Washington said the United States was now weighing a move to separate discussions with both sides -- a return to the indirect talks conducted for much of last year along shuttle diplomacy lines, as in past U.S. mediation bids.
The officials said senior Israeli and Palestinian officials were expected in Washington, possibly within the next week.