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Why the Washington Process Collapsed

(bitterlemons.org) Yossi Alpher - The peace process launched in Washington on September 1 essentially collapsed before it began. The ambitious goal of ending the entire conflict within a year, proclaimed by the Obama administration and the Quartet and endorsed by both Netanyahu and Abbas, is totally unrealistic, thereby putting undue pressure on the negotiating parties. Following upon the administration's misguided and myopic focus on a settlement freeze, it casts heavy doubt on Washington's grasp of this conflict. Perhaps even more pathetic is the current U.S. effort to entice Netanyahu into an additional, final freeze of two or three months so the direct talks can resume. The link between this time-span and the November 2 midterm elections in the U.S. is painfully transparent. The stewardship of Obama, Clinton and Mitchell clearly suffers from a failure to recognize what, if anything, is feasible and what is delusional in Israeli-Palestinian relations. The writer is former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.
2010-10-22 09:30:37
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