The US’ top Middle East envoy failed to bridge wide gaps between Israelis and Palestinians as he ended his most intensive attempt yet on Friday, raising questions over US President Barack Obama’s efforts to revive peacemaking.
The deadlock could scuttle hopes for a meeting between Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas next week in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The key disputes are over Israeli settlement expansion and whether peace talks should begin where they left off under Netanyahu’s predecessors.
Israel has balked at a US demand that it freeze settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, war-won territory the Palestinians want for their state. Under a US-sponsored plan from 2003, Israel is required to freeze all such construction.
Instead, Netanyahu wants to continue building about 3,000 housing units, while offering to curtail other construction for a period of several months. Nearly half a million Israelis have moved to the West Bank and east Jerusalem since Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Mideast War, and Palestinians fear the growing settlements will make a viable state impossible.
Abbas insists on a freeze, said his chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said after the Palestinian president met on Friday with US envoy George Mitchell.
“We once again reiterated that there are no middle ground solutions for settlements. A settlement freeze is a settlement freeze,” Erekat said.
The Palestinians also demand that negotiations resume on the same terms as previous rounds, led by Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert. This would include Israel’s willingness to discuss all so-called core issues, including a partition of Jerusalem. Netanyahu has said Jerusalem is off-limits in negotiations, and his proposed settlement slowdown does not include the city.
Over four days, Mitchell met twice with Abbas and four times with Netanyahu, including twice on Friday before Mitchell left the region.
A senior Israeli official said that wide gaps remained, but would not comment on the content of the meetings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with Israeli briefing regulations.
It appears unlikely, however, that Netanyahu would change his mind about settlement expansion. In recent days, his government announced bids for hundreds more homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and his hardline government rests on the support of Jewish settlers and their political allies.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the administration would keep pushing for a peace deal.
“I guarantee you that President Obama and I are very patient and very determined,” she said in a speech to the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “We know that this is not an easy road for anyone to travel.”
However, she also indicated that the administration would not try to impose a solution.
“We are going to do all we can to persuade, cajole, encourage the parties themselves to make that agreement. The United States cannot make it. The Arab nations cannot make it. It is up to the Palestinians and Israelis,” she said. “And to that end, we expect both sides, not just one side, but both sides to be actively engaged and willing to work towards that resolution.”
In the meantime, a meeting between Obama, Abbas and Netanyahu in New York next week appears to be a long shot.
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