U.S. Sets Start of Mideast Peace Talks

U.S. Sets Start of Mideast Peace Talks
By MARK LANDLER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/world/middleeast/01diplo.html?th&emc=th


WASHINGTON — Fifteen months after President Obama took office promising to kick-start the Middle East peace process, the United States finally plans to open talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

But the two parties will not be in the same room, many experts agree that the chances of a breakthrough are minuscule, and some say the whole exercise is simply a warm-up before Mr. Obama puts forward his own proposals for ending decades of conflict.

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed that next week, the United States would start indirect talks, in which the administration’s special envoy, George J. Mitchell, would ferry proposals between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

“Ultimately, we want to see the parties in direct negotiations and working out all the difficult issues that they must,” Mrs. Clinton said to reporters at the State Department, after meeting with Kuwait’s deputy prime minister, Muhammad al-Sabah. “They’ve been close a few times before.”

Mr. Sabah said he expected Arab states to support the talks, despite Israel’s announcement in March of plans to build new Jewish housing in East Jerusalem. The announcement opened a rift between Israel and the United States and temporarily derailed the peace process.

The Arab League is expected to endorse the decision of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to return to the bargaining table, when the organization meets on Saturday in Cairo.

Mr. Abbas’s change of heart, administration officials said, came after reassurances from the United States, including a letter from Mr. Obama prodding the Palestinian leader to re-enter talks with Israel.

Separately, these officials said, Mr. Mitchell’s deputy, David Hale, indicated to the Palestinians that if Israel proceeded with the construction of 1,600 housing units in Jerusalem’s ultra-orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, the United States would abstain from, rather than veto, a resolution in the United Nations Security Council condemning the move.

American officials also said that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had promised the United States that Israel would not proceed with this project, though he had repeatedly refused to declare a halt to building in East Jerusalem.

Such rancor and mutual suspicion hardly bodes well for the talks, experts said. But the administration believes there is still an opportunity for the two sides to feel each other out on final-status issues like the borders of a future Palestinian state, the control of Jerusalem, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees — issues that have bedeviled peace negotiators for years.

For veterans of the peace process, the prospect of Mr. Mitchell’s shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah, the West Bank headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, illustrates just how much ground has been lost in the past eight years.

“We’re going from the future way back to the past,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator who is an analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “Trust between the Israelis and the Palestinians has been shattered.”

On the other hand, he said, indirect talks will not raise expectations, always a dangerous thing in the Middle East. And the shuttle diplomacy may help answer critical questions, like whether Mr. Netanyahu is even in a position to reach an agreement, given his governing coalition.

“One way or the other, we’re going to get to American ideas,” said Martin S. Indyk, another former negotiator, who is now at the Brookings Institution. “It’s much better if they come out of a process where we’ve listened to both sides and figured out what their minimum demands are.”

Mr. Indyk said he worried about the talks being disrupted, either by a terrorist attack or by a decision by Jerusalem authorities to build housing in East Jerusalem. Israel and the United States have been warily eyeing Syria, which the Israeli government accused of transferring Scud missiles to the militant group Hezbollah.

Beyond all these hurdles, some analysts say a fundamental rethinking of Middle East peacemaking is needed, given the strength of Israel and the weakened, divided nature of the Palestinian Authority.

“There is a fundamental asymmetry between the parties, and unless we acknowledge that, we’ll be stuck,” said Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.