David Ignatius on August 2 described kerry's efforts as a
"mission impossible," which if it fails "this time, it will cost the parties
dearly;" he described the ensuing negotiations as "a kind of a benign trap,
once the prey have been lured inside, it's difficult for them to escape without
either accomplishing .. peace or damaging themselves."
Indeed in the long run, success of the resumed
negotiations warn of creating a political environment that would give
"legitimacy" to a new Israeli military assault on the Gaza Strip to remove the
"armed resistance" there to their outcome, with the overt blessing of the U,S.
sponsor of the negotiations and the discreet blessing of the Arab "peace
partners."
However, the expected failure of kerry's efforts could be
worse than the failure of the Camp David summit meeting in September 2000 of
late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak
and U.S. former president Bill Clinton.
By sending his negotiators to
Abbas has already antagonized his old allies among the
members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) - including the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is considered the third
influential Palestinian power after the two rivals of Fatah and Hamas - who
accuse him of reneging on their consensus not to resume negotiations without a
stop to the expansion of Israeli colonial settlements first.
National reconciliation between the PLO and Hamas will be
put on hold for at least the nine months which the negotiators set as the time
frame for their negotiations.
His decision put on hold as well any Palestinian new
attempt to join international organizations to build on the UN General
Assembly's recognition of
The new talks are merely "the beginning of the beginning"
of "a long process" in which "there is no guarantee" for success, according to former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright .
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