As direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks move out of Washington, little progress appears made on the fundamentals, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah As Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas met in Sharm El-Sheikh on Tuesday, 14 September, doubts were mounting as to whether the two sides -- especially the Israeli premier -- were really prepared to make the necessary concessions that would lead to comprehensive peace. The main purpose of the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting was to set up an agenda for subsequent talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams. Both sides as well as American brokers recognise that serious points of contention are impeding a smooth launching of direct talks. One Palestinian official close to the PA leadership has intimated that the Americans "wanted to create psychological momentum" that would push the talks forward, irrespective of hard facts on the ground. However, the Palestinian official, not officially authorised to speak to the press, cautioned that "we had tried this approach repeatedly during the (Bill) Clinton presidency and it didn't work." The "contentious problems" at issue are not only the cardinal issues of the conflict -- the refugee problem, Jerusalem, the borders and settlements -- but also encompass modalities and procedural matters like which issues are to be discussed first, although most if not all outstanding issues are interrelated in one way or another. Israel insists that Palestinian recognition of Israel as "a Jewish state" must be "the first order of business". The Palestinians reject the Israeli demand, which has the whiff of a diktat, outright, saying that determining Israel's religious identity is none of their business. Besides, the Palestinians argue, recognising Israel as a Jewish state would seriously prejudice the outcome of talks over the paramount issue of Palestinian refugees uprooted from their erstwhile homeland when Israel was created in 1948. Furthermore, Palestinian spokesman Nabil Shaath said this week that under no circumstances would the PA recognise Israel as a Jewish state since doing so would give Israel a pretext to ethnically cleanse its large Palestinian community which constitutes nearly one fourth of Israel's total population. "We have to be very careful about this. Tomorrow they would tell our people across the Green Line Israel is a Jewish state, and you are not Jews, and you must draw the logical conclusion." For their part, the Palestinian negotiating team, likely to be headed by Saeb Ereikat, has been instructed to insist that the issue of borders must top the agenda of the talks. Palestinians also argue that only states recognise other states and that as long as Israel refuses to recognise a viable Palestinian state with clear borders it would be pointless for Israel to demand any sort of recognition by the Palestinians. Meanwhile, it is clear that the issue of a settlement freeze remains the main make- or-break issue of the peace talks. Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, have made it clear that a complete freeze of settlement expansion in the West Bank is out of the question. However, Netanyahu has indicated that a "compromise" is possible whereby settlement construction will continue in East Jerusalem and the main settlement blocs, but be brought to a minimum in the rest of the West Bank. This "compromise" is not good enough for Ereikat and perhaps for his boss, Abbas, as well. "We have said for the umpteenth time that we can't have continued settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem on the one hand and peace talks on the other, concomitantly. The two can't go hand in hand," Ereikat said. Earlier, Ereikat argued that it was preposterous to hold talks "while Israel is devouring and carving the very territory slated to become the home of a future Palestinian state". US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed uncharacteristically sympathetic to the Palestinian point of view. On Monday, 13 September, Clinton was quoted as saying that in order for peace talks to succeed, Israel must extend the partial settlement freeze, due to expire 27 September. "This has to be understood as an effort by both the prime minister and the president (Abbas) to get over the hurdle posed by the expiration of the original moratorium in order to continue negotiations." Clinton added: "There are obligations on both sides to ensure that these negotiations continue." Indeed, the US secretary of state underlined that negotiations must continue. "For me, this is a simple choice: No negotiations, no security, no state," she said as she began her journey to Cairo. This last statement may suggest that the Obama administration is determined that negotiations between the two sides be ongoing, irrespective of whether negotiations yield progress or not, and conceivably despite the continuation of Israeli settlement expansion activities in the West Bank. In the final analysis, the Obama administration may eventually settle for a "compromise" according to which Israel keeps building settler units but without making noise about it. Building silently, however, is not really Netanyahu's style. This week, the Israeli group Peace Now reported that the Netanyahu government was planning to build 13,000 settler units after the expiration of the partial settlement freeze later this month. The report said that the new plan has already been approved by the government and that actual work would start immediately. Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer was quoted as saying that unless Netanyahu decided to extend the settlement freeze, intensive building of settler units would be resumed in all settlements -- large, small and isolated.
