Business Day reports on a global peace conference on the Middle East aimed at resuming the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. The headline is indeed more hostile than the behaviour it attempts to describe: “Israel Hostile to peace talks in the UK”.
I see no reasons why Israel should be optimistic about such a conference. Tony Blair is no doubt trying to leverage on this track to make up for the fall out he has suffered since siding with Bush in the war on Iraq. No parameters for the conference have been mentioned. The Israelis have far too much experience with conferences where their concessions are pocketed by the unyielding Palestinians and treated as the point of departure for the next talks.
Polls indicate that convicted murderer Barghouti is a nose ahead of Holocaust denier Abu Mazen. If Marwan Barghouti wins the upcoming elections then the conference would turn into a mechanism to pressurise Israel into releasing the Palestinians democratically elected murderer.
Moreover, Israel understands that the Palestinian leadership would be unable to deliver on any moves, if made public at this stage. The leadership needs to take steady steps to condition the public. Private back channel discussions are the way to move forward, and are probably taking place right now. This allows the leadership to intentionally leak information to the media in steady streams. Following this, a conference can be held where moves can be made public. This reduces the shock factor – the leaks to the media would have conditioned the public about what moves will be made, making it easier for both sides to deliver.
A conference is a good idea, if the time is right. As the Israelis have said “For now, it is wishful thinking.”
I found the closing line of the remark particularly interesting: “The report quoted sources as saying preparations for the conference dominated US-British foreign-policy talks and were at the heart of attempts to heal rifts between the US and some European states over Iraq”
I have serious problems with a conference that intends to use Israelis and Arabs as pawns in the British plan to heel rifts between the US and Europe
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