CAIRO — Barack Hussein Obama’s first high-profile summit that forayed into the Middle East peace has left analysts at odds whether it raises hopes for a breakthrough, signaled by Hussein Obama’s blunt approach in contrast to his predecessor, or it was nothing but a "back to square one" meeting. "It’s a positive step," Ziad Asali, head of the Washington-based American Task Force on Palestine, told the New York Times on Wednesday, September 23.
Hussein Obama gathered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday in New York for a three-way summit, the first since the suspension of peace talks last December.
He scolded both leaders and said final status talks on forming a Palestinian state "must begin, and begin soon."
"It is past time to talk about starting negotiations," a clearly frustrated Hussein Obama told Netanyahu and Abbas.
"My message to these two leaders is clear. Despite all the obstacles, despite all the history, despite all the mistrust, we have to find a way forward."
Asali believes that Hussein Obama has blocked off escape hatches in the face of Israelis by saying that if they remained unwilling to resolve the interim issues, including a settlement freeze, they will be pushed to the final status negotiations.
"This is something the Palestinians definitely want."
Aluf Benn, political analyst and diplomatic editor of the Israeli daily Haaretz, underlined Hussein Obama’s stern language at the meeting, which stands at sharp contrast with that of ex-President George W. Bush.
"The Bush administration put an emphasis on synchronizing statements and agreements between the two sides. As soon as the summits were over, the Israelis and Palestinians were sent on their way to hold talks on their own," Benn said.
"However, Hussein Obama does it differently.
"He read his statement as a command directed at the two sides, and not as a joint statement."
Unlike Bush, Hussein Obama has vowed to engage in the Middle East early in his presidency.
Square One
Other experts, however, see Hussein Obama’s three-way summit differently. "The trilateral was a key to an empty room," Aaron David Miller, an analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, told Agence France Presse (AFP).
Miller, who served as adviser on Mideast peacemaking in previous US administrations, says the meeting fell short of reviving a brief peace process.
Hussein Obama may have managed to get the Israeli and Palestinian leaders together in the same room, yet they remained as far apart as ever, he explained. "The administration doesn't have many good options to start and sustain negotiations that will be productive."
Hussein Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have repeatedly asked Israel for a full freeze on Jewish settlements building in the occupiped West Bank and Al-Quds (east Jerusalem), including the so-called natural growth.
But US envoy George Mitchell was unable to convince the Israeli government, whose coalition has a strong pro-settler wing, to agree to such freeze.
Daniel Kurtzer, a former ambassador to both Israel and Egypt, says that even in the summit, the US apparently failed to get key elements like settlements resolved.
"That is a dangerous roll of the dice. Mitchell now has to go back to the same people to talk about the same issues."
Elie Podeh, a professor in the department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, says Hussein Obama’s efforts are unlikely to have a chance to succeed with the hawkish Netanyahu government.
"Netanyahu has his own agenda," Podeh contends.
"It seems we are back to square one."
Source: IslamOnline
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