NYT
Washington
IT has lately become the accepted wisdom that the Middle East peace process is dead, finished, kaput. This belief has been reinforced by Al Jazeera’s release this week of some 1,600 documents that are said to describe the inside workings of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2008.
The arguments claiming that the peace process is dead come from all corners: Some contend that the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, is ineffectual or illegitimate. Some say the asymmetry of power between Israel and the Palestinians is simply too great for a genuine compromise. Some insist the conflict is driven by unabated anti-Semitic incitement on the part of the Palestinians, or by irredeemable Israeli racism.
Other arguments are more specific. Some analysts feel that the real problem is that the Palestine Liberation Organization has become trapped by the Obama administration’s quest for a settlement freeze, which has prevented direct negotiations with Israel. Still another argument points out that Gaza, which has no future independent of the rest of Palestine, remains under the boot of the brutal fundamentalists of Hamas, rendering the P.L.O. incapable of delivering a final status agreement for the whole of the Palestinian people.
It is also argued that the threat of a nuclear Iran, and the support to Hamas and other extremists provided by Tehran, makes a deal impossible. And many observers have noted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, perched atop a governing coalition that is both internally argumentative and habitually intransigent, has not provided much confidence in the chances of even a provisional compromise, especially as settlers continue to build in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
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