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Time to Hang Up My Track (II) Shoes

(Forward) Yossi Alpher - Informal Israeli-Palestinian meetings, commonly known as "Track II," are in danger of becoming pathetic and pointless. Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections a few months ago, and since then I've become allergic to Track II meetings. They tend to be despairingly unproductive, for two reasons. First, the organizers want to talk about returning to a peace process. They approach the issues as if Hamas had never replaced Fatah in power; as if PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had the standing and authority to negotiate on behalf of a unified political entity; as if Abbas' positions on the key issues, like the "right of return" of the 1948 refugees, had suddenly become more flexible and acceptable to Israelis. Second, the Fatah stalwarts want to plot with us how Fatah will retake power in the next election - assuming, mindlessly, that there will be another Palestinian election anytime soon. Could we discuss how disengagement might be configured so as to benefit Palestinians? No, it's not on the Palestinian, American, European, or Arab agenda. Well-meaning friends of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process have obliged Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to pledge to try to negotiate with Abbas even though he knows the effort will prove fruitless. The writer was a former senior adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.
2006-06-16 00:00:00
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