- Title: VARIOUS/FILE: Low expectations could be key for Middle East peace talks success
- Date: 30th July 2013
- Summary: SHARM EL-SHEIKH, EGYPT (FILE - 2005) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) ABBAS AND ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON SHAKING HANDS SHARON AT TABLE SHARON, EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT HOSNI MUBARAK, JORDAN'S KING ABDULLAH AND ABBAS STANDING SIDE-BY-SIDE
- Embargoed: 14th August 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Egypt
- Country: Egypt
- Topics: International Relations,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA2DNS32GY7JY406WZD8YTVCNYO
- Story Text: Peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis have a long and mostly disappointing history, Israeli and Palestinian analysts said on Tuesday (July 30) after the long-stalled negotiations resumed in Washington.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held their first peace talks in nearly three years on Monday (July 29) in a U.S.-brokered effort that Secretary of State John Kerry hopes will end their conflict despite deep divisions.
Jonathan Reinhold, a lecturer in politics at Bar Illan university and a researcher at the BESA center for strategic studies, said not much has changed since the last talks collapsed. The same problems remain and the same politicians are involved, he said.
Any success could come from low expectations, Reinhold said.
"Well I think the key of the success is to aim low, modesty. I think that even in the best case scenarios where we have had massive support for the peace process on both sides and internationally, where we have had Israeli governments that are more to the left we have failed to reach a permanent status agreement. Therefore I think the objective that is realistic should be an interim agreement in which it may well be possible that both sides would be better off even if no one has everything that they want," Reinhold said.
The negotiators held bilateral meetings on Tuesday at the State Department.
The talks are expected to run for nine months.
While Kerry has urged the two sides to strike "reasonable compromises," there are major disagreements on issues such as borders and security.
The United States is seeking to broker an agreement on a "two-state solution" in which Israel would exist peacefully alongside a new Palestinian state created in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, lands occupied by the Israelis since a 1967 war.
The major issues that need to be resolved to bring an end to more than six decades of conflict include borders, the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
"Success is difficult to achieve because the gap between the Palestinian and Israeli positions is very wide. Despite all the Palestinian moderation and flexibility, despite all the Palestinian concessions, the Israeli government wants everything and is ready to give only fragments to the Palestinians. This could help for some time to ease the occupation, but will not stop the explosion sooner or later," Hani Al-Masri, a Palestinian political analyst and an independent columnist in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
In a statement, President Barack Obama urged both sides to negotiate in good faith and said "the United States stands ready to support them throughout these negotiations."
The talks will be conducted by senior aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - Israel's Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Molcho - and to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - represented by Saeb Erekat and Mohammed Ishtyeh.
The last round of peace talks presided over by U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton collapsed in 2010 in a dispute over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, which the Palestinians want along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem for their future state.
In 2005, in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas agreed to end nearly four years of bloodshed.
Today, former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak has gone and Egypt is in crisis.
"With the problems in Egypt, with the problems in Syria, with the Iranian nuclear which is far and away the most important issue in the region, the United States doesn't want another regional explosion, another conflict. And with Israeli settlements, with the Palestinians threatening to take this issue to the United Nations, the Americans can see that those things are potentially explosives. So what they want to do is by having negotiations you make it much more difficult to light matches that could lead to an explosion, you calm the thing down and it makes it easier to manage," Reinhold also said.
In 2007 the U.S. sponsored the Annapolis peace conference, in which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas participated, along with Arab states and world powers. The goal was to reach a peace treaty by the end of 2008, but talks effectively ended in late December 2008 when Israel, responding to repeated ceasefire violations by the Palestinian group Hamas, launched military operations in the Gaza Strip.
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