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Renew the Mideast Peace Process? Not Now
(Los Angeles Times) Chuck Freilich - Well before the Gaza operation, strategists and pundits were calling on President Obama to devote his second term to a renewed effort to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. They are wrong. The last thing the Middle East and the U.S. needs is another failed American-led peace process. And it would fail. Regional conditions are far less propitious than when Bill Clinton was in office. Hamas, which was not in power back then, is a fundamentalist Islamist organization whose charter refers to Jews as donkeys and dogs and calls for Israel's destruction. It is not a partner for negotiations. The "moderate" president of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, has refused to negotiate for the last three years. One aspect of American power is the perception that it can force the sides to reach agreement. Another aborted attempt would merely reinforce the Arab image of the U.S. as a weak, declining power, making it that much harder for the U.S. to play an effective role when the time is right. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict actually has little to do with the primary challenges facing the Mideast today - the Iranian nuclear program and the slaughter in Syria - and resolving it will not significantly enhance other American interests in the region or its relations with Arab states. The writer is a senior fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School.