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Imposed Solution in the Middle East

(Global Politician) Barry Rubin - There is growing evidence that the U.S. government is thinking of presenting its own comprehensive peace plan on the Israel-Palestinian issue. If the Obama administration does move in this direction, however, I predict that it will be a major failure and humiliation. The administration has just signaled to the Palestinians that they want to make the indirect talks fail, since then the U.S. government will make an "imposed" offer that will adopt almost all of their demands. In addition, the strategy is deeply against diplomatic norms. U.S. policy has always been to insist that the two parties will decide on the issues. For many years, Israel has been making concessions based on an understanding that there would be no attempt at an imposed solution. This, then, would be the third commitment from past years that the Obama administration would break. The first was that any diplomatic solution could include Israel keeping some areas - settlement blocs - across the pre-1967 borders (though a State Department note back in October 2009 hinted that would be possible). The second was agreeing that Israel could build in east Jerusalem if it stopped building in the West Bank, a promise noisily and insultingly broken recently. Why, then, should Israel trust any promise in the future made by this government? The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, IDC Herzliya.
2010-04-09 09:19:36
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