(Daily Beast) Leslie H. Gelb - Unless the Secretary of State knows something we don't, the Middle East peace talks will fail. And failure is worse than not negotiating. During the last couple of years, while negotiations have been decidedly on the backburner, Israel has been almost entirely free from terrorist attacks emanating from the Palestinian West Bank. Palestinian and Israeli security forces now work together to keep the peace. All of that could go up in smoke if these talks fail. Indeed, terrorists are likely to shed Israeli and perhaps even Palestinian blood in order to make the talks fail. Many officials tell me that neither Netanyahu nor Abbas came close to giving Obama any specific indications of compromise in their White House meetings two weeks ago. Nor did either leader push Obama into these talks; Obama pushed them. The writer is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
2010-09-16 09:37:10Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive