LOC10:56
07:56 GMT
LONDON, Sept 4 (KUNA) -- It is clear Israelis and Palestinians face a tough
slog if the negotiations launched in Washington are to get anywhere near the
agreement US President Barack Obama hopes to reach within a year, according to
a comment here Saturday.
Low expectations were reflected in the opening statements, but it was the
US that sounded most determined to keep hopes alive in the face of profound
scepticism in the Middle East and beyond, the Guardian newspaper said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's most significant comment was her
promise to be an "active and sustained partner", noting that an agreement was
"in the national security interests of the US".
But her clear warning that the US "cannot and will not impose a solution"
will alarm those who believe that only thus will Israelis and Palestinians be
able to wriggle out of what she called "the shackles of history" to make
peace.
Clinton's appeal to "those who criticise and stand on the sidelines" was
unlikely to impress Hamas, the paper believed.
The Islamist movement that controls Gaza prefers resistance (including the
killing on Tuesday of four Israeli settlers) to negotiations, and excoriates
Mahmoud Abbas as a "traitor".
Israeli premier Binyamin Netanyahu's familiar script reflected his dual
need not to alienate the Americans or his rightwing coalition allies at home.
So he hailed Palestinian president Abbas as a "partner" while stressing the
importance of security, and repeated his insistence on explicit recognition of
Israel as "a Jewish state" a demand taken by many as a way of blocking the
right of return of Palestinians who lost their homes in 1948 and 1967, the
daily added.
Netanyahu's pointed references to "Iran and its proxies" and the emergence
of "missile warfare in the region" in recent years were reminders of the
threats he and many of his compatriots worry about far more than the
Palestinians these days. It may be true that "a lasting peace will be achieved
only with mutual and painful concessions from both sides," but there was no
sign that he is willing or politically able to extend his grudging moratorium
on settlement building in the West Bank when it expires later this month, the
Guardian noted.
The Palestinians have warned they will break off talks if he does not.
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