Israel-Palestine Analysis: What is the Obama Administration Seeking?

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Middle East Inside Line: Israel-Palestine Moves in Cairo, Israel’s Conversion Bill, No Smoking Pipes for Gaza Women

Time is passing and the hopes of millions, encouraged by the November 2008 US elections, are melting away in the Middle East. The "extending a hand to unclenched fists" in President Obama's Inaugural speech, the declarations on democracy, freedom, humanity, and religion in the Cairo speech of June 2009, and dozens of proclamations on "Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security" have started to lose their aura.

Before the last meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian Authority put another condition for the final status of a future Palestinian state: the deployment of international forces in the Palestinian territories as part of peace deal. However, instead of bringing pressure from the Obama Administration upon Israel --- for example, an extension of the settlement freeze in the West Bank if not necessarily a freeze on construction in East Jerusalem and lifting of the siege on Gaza, Washington merely polished up the grail of "Israel's security".

Having extended a carrot-filled unclenched fist to Netanyahu, President Obama had to put pressure on Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to start direct talks as soon as possible. Of course, he knew that Palestinians would resist this since Israel had not responded to their requirements: the status of final borders, based on 1967, with agreed land swaps and the continuation of negotiations from December 2008. So, Obama allegedly promised Abbas that he would put his own map --- making concessions in favour of Palestinians, with East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state --- if Israel fails to bring its own proposals by next winter.

Meanwhile, the next target, both for Netanyahu and Obama's envoy George Mitchell, was Egypt. Both hope that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, with links across the Arab world, can put pressure on Ramallah. However, Cairo does not seem to want that leading role since there is nothing to offer. 

After this weekend's Netanyahu-Mubarak meeting, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said more work needs to be done to bridge the gap between Israel and the Palestinians before they can move to direct peace talks. Moreover, officials in Egypt were concerned over Israel's position towards Hamas in Gaza.

The mediator role (or "central mediator" as Netanyahu frames it) is quite attractive for Egypt but only as long as Israel does not pass responsibility for control of Gaza to Cairo, as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman offered last week, and as long as Israel does not wage a war against Hamas. Cairo's own priority is gaining credibility through a reconciliation agreement --- either negotiated or imposed --- between Fatah and Hamas.

This weekend's moves also failed for Mitchell. On Saturday, he met with Abbas and he got nothing. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat avoided comment on the meeting but Abbas’ Fatah Central Committee member and strongman Mohammad Dahlan said that Fatah has rejected a call by Mitchell to start direct negotiations. “Going to direct negotiations requires that there should be progress and clear Israeli answers to the borders and security issues,” Dahlan said. “In light of the absences of Israeli responses to these two issues, Fatah has not changed its position regarding refusing to go to direct negotiations.”

So, what is left for the Obama Administration? At the meeting on Saturday, Mitchell said his mediation aims at realizing “the vision that President Obama had set for a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, which must begin with an agreement between Israel and Palestine that will provide for two states living side by side in peace and security and hopefully prosperity.” A day before, he was in Damascus and said: "If we are to succeed, we will need Arabs and Israelis alike to work with us to bring about comprehensive peace."

"Comprehensive peace"? Really? Does the Obama Administration still envisage resolution of the Israeli-Palestian conflict as an opening to further advances from Syria to Lebanon to Gaza? Or is it just offering the appearance of doing something --- anything --- until the end of US elections in November?

Middle East Inside Line: Israel-Palestine Moves in Cairo, Netanyahu-Lieberman Feud, No Smoking Pipes for Gaza Women

UPDATE 1025 GMT: More on the item below on conflict between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman...

Lieberman held a press conference this morning, offering far-from-enthusiastic support for the coalition Government: "It can not be that we were the first [to sign the coalition agreement but we're the last when it comes to the budget. We weren't humiliated, and we aren't the kind of people who let others humiliate us - we won't give this joy to anyone. We do not intend to leave. This coalition can last until 2010 [Editor: 2010?!] in its current framework, and we will do everything possible to make it happen," Lieberman said.

Israel-Palestine Analysis: What is the Obama Administration Seeking?
Middle East Inside Line: Lieberman-Netanyahu Tension, Syria’s “Greatest Hope”, Restrictions on Gaza, & Much More

Cairo's Israel-Palestine Mediation: On Sunday, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas held separate meetings with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. Netanyahu, expected to ask Egypt's help in moving Palestinians to direct talks, said, "President Mubarak represents the aspiration to expand the circle of peace, stability and security to all the region's peoples. I view him as a central partner in achieving these important goals."

After talks with US special envoy George Mitchell, Mohammed Dahlan, the head of the Fatah Party's public relations, said Israel has not accepted the PA's demands on security and border issues so there is no reason for direct talks to resume. Abbas had said he would resume direct peace talks if Israel accepted its 1967 frontier as a baseline for the borders of a Palestinian state and agreed to the deployment of an international force.

After the Netanyahu-Mubarak meeting, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said more work needs to be done to bridge the gap between Israel and the Palestinians before they can move to direct peace talks.

More Netanyahu-Lieberman Tension: The latest incident stoking tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, is Lieberman's appointment --- without Netanyahu's consent --- of a relatively little-known diplomat, Meiron Reuven, as Israel’s Acting Ambassador to the United Nations.

This is not the only troublesome issue, however. Last week, the  Constitution, Law and Justice Committee of the Knesset approved the draft on conversion reform, a bill giving Israel's chief rabbinate the legal power to decide whether any conversion outside Israel is legitimate. Under current practice, Israel recognizes only conversions performed by Orthodox rabbis inside Israel, but people converted by non-Orthodox rabbis outside the country are automatically eligible for Israeli citizenship.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said he opposes the conversion bill, proposed by Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu Party, because it is "tearing apart the Jewish people". He added that his Likud Party would block the proposed legislation from a vote in the Knesset.

In contrast, Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) said that the absence of a conversion law would pose "an enormous spiritual danger to the Jewish people".

Lieberman's "Serious Partner" Advertisement: Following European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton's statement on the need to open all border crossings around the Gaza Strip, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the new Israeli policy of increasing the amount of goods that can enter the Gaza Strip "is not enough" and that his government "is looking for serious partners" to improve the economic situation in the coastal territory.

He added that Israel is working on a plan to build a power station, desalination plants, and infrastructure for water purification in the Gaza Strip. Doing so, Lieberman put the ball in the court of Hamas, implying that the political leadership of Gaza is the real barrier to Israeli  help with the economy.

Cairo's Anger at Lieberman: The Israeli Foreign Minister,however, has ruffled feathers in Egypt. Last week Lieberman called on Israel to disconnect gradually from the Gaza Strip, shutting down all border crossings with the Strip and allowing movement in and out through the sea and the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border.

Senior Egyptian officials told Haaretz that Cairo adamantly opposed the move. "We won't allow the responsibility for Gaza to be dumped on us," one official said. "You don't work like that and we are wondering about the timing of Lieberman's statement just before Netanyahu's meeting with President Mubarak."

No Smoking Pipes for Women in Gaza: On Sunday, Hamas said it had banned women from smoking water pipes in public.

Interior ministry spokesman Ihab al-Ghussein told AFP:

The police have decided to ban women from smoking water pipes in open, public places because it is against our customs, traditions and social norms.