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Critical Questions for Annapolis and Beyond

[Washington Institute for Near East Policy] Robert Satloff - After a short-lived romance with the possibility of reaching a full-scale Israeli-Palestinian agreement on the core issues - Jerusalem, territory, security, and refugees - the Annapolis hosts realized that the step-by-step philosophy embodied in the Roadmap was essential. Israel made an important procedural concession: acceptance that negotiations for the third phase of the Roadmap (creation of a Palestinian state) can proceed without full compliance on the first phase's security obligations. But however much U.S. officials would like to broker agreements on the core issues, it is clear that the focus is on devising a mechanism to define, execute, and monitor the security-related terms of the first phase. Washington tried this before in 2003 and failed. U.S. officials expect Arab states will no longer insist on normalization at the end of the process, and instead implement aspects of normalization in parallel with Israel's early discussion of final status issues.
2007-11-20 01:00:00
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