Barack Obama Begins Push for Middle East Peace
US president to invite Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian leaders to the White House within the next two months
Barack Obama is to invite Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian leaders to the White House within the next two months in a fresh push for Middle East peace.
Obama, speaking at the White House yesterday, said there was a need to try to rise above the cynicism about prospects for peace. The decision appeared to mark the end of a debate within the Obama administration between those who argued in favor of devoting time and energy to trying to resolve the conflict and those who argued it was a blind alley.
Meeting King Abdullah of Jordan at the White House yesterday, Obama said he hoped "gestures of good faith" would be made "on all sides" in the coming months. He did not say what these gestures, intended as confidence-building measures, would amount to.
The three leaders are being invited for separate talks rather than round-table negotiations. The aim is to complete all three visits before Obama goes to France for the D-Day anniversary on 6 June.
The chances of a deal in the short term appear slim and Obama yesterday acknowledged that circumstances in Israel and the Palestinian territories were not conducive to peace. "Unfortunately, right now what we've seen not just in Israel, but within the Palestinian territories, among the Arab states, worldwide, is a profound cynicism about the possibility of any progress being made whatsoever," he said.
"What we want to do is to step back from the abyss, to say, as hard as it is, as difficult as it may be, the prospect of peace still exists, but it's going to require some hard choices."
His push comes against a background of the devastation of Gaza by Israeli forces last year and continued infighting among Palestinian factions. The hardline Israeli coalition that emerged from the February elections includes as foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who opposes swapping land for peace.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said the meetings were likely to take place before the president goes to France. "With each of them the president will discuss ways the United States can strengthen and deepen our partnerships with them, as well as the steps all parties must take to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and the Arab states," Gibbs told a news conference
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has been pencilled in for a visit to the White House in the middle of next month. Netanyahu, since becoming prime minister, has refused to acknowledge the right of the Palestinians to a state of their own, as his predecessor had. But Obama yesterday stated firmly his commitment to the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is to make a separate visit, as is the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. Egypt has been acting as a go-between between Abbas, who controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls Gaza.
The White House meetings could amount to the start of the biggest US push for peace since a half-hearted one by George Bush, who held a conference at Annapolis, Maryland, in 2007 and Bill Clinton's belated effort at the Camp David summit in 2000 and Taba in Egypt in 2001.The US has failed to achieve any major peace agreement in the Middle East since Jimmy Carter brokered the Israeli-Egyptian treaty in 1979.
Obama appears to have come round to the view of advisers that the US will effectively have to impose much of any deal on Israel and the Palestinians rather than wait for one to emerge from the two sides. He said yesterday: "I agree that we can't talk forever, that at some point steps have to be taken so that people can see progress on the ground. And that will be something that we will expect to take place in the coming months.
"My hope would be that over the next several months, that you start seeing gestures of good faith on all sides. I don't want to get into the details of what those gestures might be, but I think that the parties in the region probably have a pretty good recognition of what intermediate steps could be taken as confidence-building measures."
In a symbolic move intended to show that he seeks to be more of an honest broker than Clinton or Bush, Obama, on his first day in office, phoned Abbas before he phoned Ehud Olmert, then Israeli prime minister. He was also demonstrating that he was prepared to become involved from day one rather than, as his predecessors had done, leaving the issue to the tail end of his presidency.
Obama, speaking at the White House yesterday, said there was a need to try to rise above the cynicism about prospects for peace. The decision appeared to mark the end of a debate within the Obama administration between those who argued in favor of devoting time and energy to trying to resolve the conflict and those who argued it was a blind alley.
Meeting King Abdullah of Jordan at the White House yesterday, Obama said he hoped "gestures of good faith" would be made "on all sides" in the coming months. He did not say what these gestures, intended as confidence-building measures, would amount to.
The three leaders are being invited for separate talks rather than round-table negotiations. The aim is to complete all three visits before Obama goes to France for the D-Day anniversary on 6 June.
The chances of a deal in the short term appear slim and Obama yesterday acknowledged that circumstances in Israel and the Palestinian territories were not conducive to peace. "Unfortunately, right now what we've seen not just in Israel, but within the Palestinian territories, among the Arab states, worldwide, is a profound cynicism about the possibility of any progress being made whatsoever," he said.
"What we want to do is to step back from the abyss, to say, as hard as it is, as difficult as it may be, the prospect of peace still exists, but it's going to require some hard choices."
His push comes against a background of the devastation of Gaza by Israeli forces last year and continued infighting among Palestinian factions. The hardline Israeli coalition that emerged from the February elections includes as foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who opposes swapping land for peace.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said the meetings were likely to take place before the president goes to France. "With each of them the president will discuss ways the United States can strengthen and deepen our partnerships with them, as well as the steps all parties must take to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and the Arab states," Gibbs told a news conference
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has been pencilled in for a visit to the White House in the middle of next month. Netanyahu, since becoming prime minister, has refused to acknowledge the right of the Palestinians to a state of their own, as his predecessor had. But Obama yesterday stated firmly his commitment to the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is to make a separate visit, as is the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. Egypt has been acting as a go-between between Abbas, who controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls Gaza.
The White House meetings could amount to the start of the biggest US push for peace since a half-hearted one by George Bush, who held a conference at Annapolis, Maryland, in 2007 and Bill Clinton's belated effort at the Camp David summit in 2000 and Taba in Egypt in 2001.The US has failed to achieve any major peace agreement in the Middle East since Jimmy Carter brokered the Israeli-Egyptian treaty in 1979.
Obama appears to have come round to the view of advisers that the US will effectively have to impose much of any deal on Israel and the Palestinians rather than wait for one to emerge from the two sides. He said yesterday: "I agree that we can't talk forever, that at some point steps have to be taken so that people can see progress on the ground. And that will be something that we will expect to take place in the coming months.
"My hope would be that over the next several months, that you start seeing gestures of good faith on all sides. I don't want to get into the details of what those gestures might be, but I think that the parties in the region probably have a pretty good recognition of what intermediate steps could be taken as confidence-building measures."
In a symbolic move intended to show that he seeks to be more of an honest broker than Clinton or Bush, Obama, on his first day in office, phoned Abbas before he phoned Ehud Olmert, then Israeli prime minister. He was also demonstrating that he was prepared to become involved from day one rather than, as his predecessors had done, leaving the issue to the tail end of his presidency.
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