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United States President Barack Obama - Source: Reuters -
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US President Barack Obama will broker his first summit of
Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday but is given little
chance of achieving a breakthrough toward re-launching long-stalled
peace talks.
Obama will make his most direct foray into Middle East diplomacy
when he brings together Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in New York a day before
making his UN General Assembly debut.
With the two sides entrenched in their positions, the meeting - the
first between Netanyahu and Abbas - could yield just a three-way
handshake instead of the diplomatic coup White House aides had once
hoped for.
All parties have sought to lower expectations about the
results.
"We have no grand expectations out of one meeting except to
continue ... the hard work, day-to-day diplomacy that has to be
done to seek a lasting peace," said White House spokesman Robert
Gibbs.
Obama's best prospect for salvaging something more than symbolism
from the talks is if he can find a way to narrow the gap between
Israel and the Palestinians or wring out even modest good-faith
concessions.
Hopes that this would be a breakthrough summit dimmed after George
Mitchell, Obama's Middle East envoy, left the region on Friday
without reaching a deal with Israel over limits on Jewish
settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Each side has blamed the other for the failure of Mitchell's
mission.
Little tangible progress
Despite that, there has been little tangible progress since Obama
set Middle East peace as a top priority at the start of his
presidency in January, drawing a contrast to his predecessor George
Bush, who was criticized internationally for neglecting the
long-running conflict.
A reactivated US role in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking is also
seen as a major part of Obama's effort to repair America's image in
the Muslim world.
However, his administration has made little headway in clearing
obstacles to negotiations on an agreement to create a Palestinian
state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and resolve disputes over the
future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.
Relations between Washington and its close ally Israel are facing
the worst strains in a decade with Netanyahu's right-leaning
government resisting US pressure to halt settlement
expansion.
Netanyahu, whose coalition has a strong pro-settler wing, has
rejected a total cessation of building within settlements, saying
the natural growth of settler families must be accommodated.
Washington has explicitly rejected that argument.
Netanyahu offered Mitchell a nine-month freeze in settlement
building in the West Bank, Israeli officials said, adding that the
envoy was pressing for a one-year suspension.
Abbas is demanding an open-ended settlement freeze that also
includes East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West
Bank in a 1967 war.
Echoing Palestinian officials who say Tuesday's meeting during the
UN General Assembly does not mean a return to a negotiating process
that was suspended in December, Netanyahu ally Benny Begin said:
"The summit will not mark a start to negotiations."
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