Israelis, Palestinians to launch indirect talks
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The Israelis and Palestinians are about to launch indirect talks after more than a year of accusations and counter-accusations that left Washington admitting that it had underestimated just how difficult it would be to end the conflict.
Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told Xinhua on Monday that Israel wants to see face-to-face talks as soon as possible to focus on the core issues blocking the way to a final-status agreement.
He stressed that the Israeli positions on all the key issues are not preconditions, but rather Israel's initial bargaining stances.
Based on a decision last week by Arab League foreign ministers, the Palestinian leadership on Sunday gave the indirect approach four months to produce results. At that point, they will reassess whether they are interested in continuing with the process.
Palestinian officials have been insisting that they will not enter direct talks until Israel implements a full settlement freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Format and content
On Sunday, the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole internationally-recognized representative of the Palestinian people, announced that it agreed to participate in the parley, with the hope that it will focus on the future borders of any Palestinian state and security in the area.
Local media is suggesting that the discussions will likely initially take place in both Jerusalem and Ramallah, with U.S. special envoy George Mitchell shuttling between the two.
It is also likely that the negotiators will hold indirect talks in the United States, with the teams respectively headed by Saeb Erekat on the Palestinian side and Yitzhak Molcho on the Israeli side. The latter is a confidante of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It is not yet clear which issues will be raised in these initial sessions or whether they will be merely talks about talks.
"The sooner we get to direct talks the better," Palmor said, espousing the general view in Israel that the indirect parley is merely a warm-up for the face-to-face meeting which the Americans hope will follow.
As soon as the real talks begin, the sides will decide on their content, said Palmor, who declined to detail the agenda for the indirect sessions.
More details could be made public during the visit to the region this week by U.S. Vice president Joe Biden.
Asked if the talks were merely arranged as a face-saving gesture for U.S. President Barack Obama after he admitted that the conflict was a tougher nut to crack than he had envisioned, Palmor stressed that Israel has been pushing for negotiations for months and that Israel is pleased that the Palestinians decided to come on board at last.
The Palestinians have considered these dialogues via an intermediary as a necessary evil. They have refused to enter negotiations with Israel until Israel meets their demand for a settlement freeze. On the other hand, the Palestinians have also felt that they have to show goodwill towards the Americans.
Indeed, it was only after the Arab League gave its conditional support to the American call for indirect talks that the Palestinians nodded their reluctant consent.
Room for optimism
The positions put forward by Israel in the initial, indirect talks will not be particularly significant, said Eitan Azani, an expert on the Palestinian issues from Israel's Interdisciplinary Center.
He believes that the initial parley is merely to ensure that the two sides are talking rather than anything more serious. When it comes down to brass tacks, Azani said he does not believe that it will be possible for the Israelis to make the compromises required to satisfy the Palestinian public opinion.
"If you consider what they want, there's no way. They want Jerusalem, a Palestinian state right now. But that won't be resolved because the conflict is far deeper," said Azani.
Israel has made clear its bargaining positions. Netanyahu said last month that Israel must retain control of the Jordan River Valley. That means that the Palestinians would not have a shared border with Jordan and that Israel would oversee all cross-border security.
A large part of the Jordan River Valley is located along the eastern border of the occupied West Bank, and is part of the land the Palestinians claim as territories of their future state.
Israel has also demanded that the Palestinians guarantee Israel 's security, the militant Hamas movement be disarmed and that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state. As of Jerusalem, arguably the thorniest issue, Israel's official position is that the city is the country's "indivisible, united capital."
In light of the gaping gaps between the Israeli and the Palestinian stances, most experts remain pessimistic about the chances of success for the imminent indirect talks, even if they do expand into full-blown direct negotiations.
However, Uri Savir, director-general of the Peres Center for Peace, said that he believes there is room to be positive.
"I welcome the resumption of negotiations. The fact that these are indirect talks doesn't prevent the leaders of the two sides from making courageous decisions that are required in order to reboot the peace process," Savir told Xinhua.
Until now, Netanyahu has spoken in favor of peace talks and has said that he would be prepared to conditionally recognize a Palestinian state. Yet as the Palestinian leadership has put it, Netanyahu will be judged not on his words but on his deeds.
