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Hopes Dim for Peace Deal

[ New York Times] Helene Cooper - The official line in Washington, Jerusalem and Ramallah is that the decision by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel to resign will not affect American efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians before the end of the year. At the State Department, a senior administration official said, "Fundamentally, as Americans, we don't give up." To that end, Secretary of State Rice told Palestinian and Israeli officials that she would return to the region in late August for more talks. But that trip may be based mostly on wishful thinking, foreign policy experts said. A few officials at the State Department expressed the hope that Olmert could turn his lame-duck status into an asset and strike a peace bargain with Abbas. But even if Olmert were able to reach a deal on the contentious "final status" issues that have bedeviled peace negotiators since 1979, he would be in no position to sell it to a skeptical Israeli public. The chances of a deal that could be carried out on the ground were not great to begin with, foreign policy experts say, since the authority of Abbas is confined to the West Bank and would not be honored by Hamas which controls Gaza.
2008-08-01 01:00:00
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