Barely started peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians nearly ended late last month when Israel announced that it would allow the moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank to expire. The decision irritated Palestinians, who had long made it clear that their participation in the talks was tied directly to continuation of the ban. The resumption of construction, however, did not prompt a walkout. It merely postponed a Palestinian decision about the future of the peace talks until a meeting of the Arab League. That gathering convenes in Libya today.
The meeting of the 22-nation group is the perfect backdrop for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to announce his decision on whether to continue peace talks in light of Israel’s intransigence on settlements. He’ll be among friends whose support is critical to Palestinians whether Abbas decides to remain at the table or to leave negotiations. At this writing, there was little to indicate which path Abbas would choose.
There’s considerable evidence, though, that diplomatic negotiations that could directly affect his decision have been underway. They are aimed at keeping the talks open even if it is in name only. All sides, it appears, want to avoid a public failure of the peace negotiations. That’s a practical goal. Global leaders correctly fear that it will be impossible or nearly impossible to revive the talks in the future if the Palestinians -or Israelis – publicly scuttle them now.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been extremely active in promoting continuation of the talks, and understandably so. The Obama administration has made the peace talks and the resolution they could bring to a troubled place in the world a centerpiece of its foreign policy. The collapse of the talks would be a considerable blow to the administration’s standing at home and abroad.
Clinton has been joined at various times by Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who now represents the “Quartet” of Mideast peacemakers, by George Mitchell, the U.S. special envoy to the region, and by Dennis Ross, a top U.S. policy advisor on the Mideast. They’ve worked with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, Abbas and other Palestinian officials, and contacts in other Arab nations. It is widely suspected that they’ve hammered out some sort of deal to keep the talks alive.
Exactly what form that deal might take is uncertain at the moment. It might involve some sort of Israeli acquiescence to a request to go slow on West Bank settlement expansion for a time. That would give diplomats time to develop ways to provide security guarantees acceptable to an Israeli public deeply divided on the settlement issue, and to placate Palestinians who want something concrete in return for their participation in peace talks.
Many observers have viewed the Arab League meeting as an absolute deadline for Abbas’ decision on the future of the talks. Hopefully, it is not. Compromise and cooperation, not brinksmanship, remain the preferred routes to Mideast peace.