Tuesday August 18, 2009

I've Been Thinking:

Now that the US and Egypt have begun their summit in Washington DC the United States can pressure the Palestinians and the Israelis to begin their dialogue. At least, that's the word from State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley who made the announcement at the conclusion of an hour long meeting between Hillary Clinton and Hosni Mubarak.

To quote Crowley: "We're trying to work hard to create conditions for negotiation to continue and we hope to have this phase of this process completed in the next few weeks."
Now that is a pretty optimistic timetable.

The Palestinians have said they will not come to the table unless there is a total stoppage of building.
The Israelis believe that a total stop to building is unrealistic.

Mubarak threw another monkey wrench into the equation today.
Mubarak said that The Arab world will only make its gesture of recognizing Israel or of even warming relations towards Israel after a final peace treaty is signed.
That will not go over well in Jerusalem and it was hard for Washington to hear.

There was serious expectation that Arab relations towards Israel would be thawing. That thaw would be presented to Israel as a way to urge them on to make real concessions towards the Palestinians.
That whole scenario looks very unlikely right now.

Read my new book THUGS. It's easy. Just click.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=halpern%2C+micah