Current affairs
Don’t write off Obama’s Middle-East peace initiative
A Mid-eastern farewell photo at the UN?
By Rami G. Khouri
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Daily Star staffIt was exactly eight months ago that Obama, on the second day of his presidency, went to the State Department and announced both his personal commitment to Middle East peace-making and the appointment of George Mitchell as his special envoy to the peace process. The two other principals – Netanyahu and Abbas – have persisted in their traditional mode of personal behavior and policy directions. Netanyahu has dug in his heels, fortified by the knowledge that his right-wing coalition government and perhaps a small majority of Israelis share his hard-line positions, especially on resisting American pressure. Abbas and his government, heavily disconnected from their fellow citizens, are almost mystically absent from the negotiating process that will existentially define the future wellbeing of the Palestinian people.
The important question now is how the Obama team will respond to the realities it has encountered since January. These include the sharp and public Israeli resistance to Washington’s call for a total freeze on Israeli settlements and colonization of occupied Palestinian land, a limp Arab response to the American call for gestures of Arab normalization with Israel, and an unusually blunt Saudi public rejection of that call.
Obama has put his own and his country’s credibility and name on the line in his repeated demand that Israel freeze settlements unconditionally. Netanyahu responded by rejecting this, and by simultaneously expanding settlements. The United States cannot now just throw up its hands in exasperation and say that it tried and failed. What might happen next?
http://newageislam.com/don%E2%80%99t-write-off-obama%E2%80%99s-middle-east-peace-initiative/current-affairs/d/1789
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9:20 PM
Moderate Islamist here
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