What will they talk about?

Op-ed: US announcement on renewal of direct talks leaves more questions than answers

Yitzhak Benhorin|Published: 08.22.10 , 11:44

WASHINGTON – Hillary Clinton read her statement about the US invitation for Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas to launch direct peace talks on September 2, and rushed out of the State Department’s briefing room. Special Envoy George Mitchell was left behind to contend with the many questions still up in the air. Mitchell himself provided brief answers, cautiously and hesitantly, while consulting his papers with uncharacteristic nervousness as not to screw up.

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After a year and a half of trips to Ramallah and Jerusalem, wearing a suit and tie in the sweltering Mideastern heat while making promises, cajoling, threatening, and overpowering his interlocutors, the last thing Mitchell needed was a slip of the tongue that would ruin everything.

Nothing in that briefing could have told us what really happened behind the scenes; what did Netanyahu and Abbas pledge to the Americans which cannot be uttered publically? There was no mention of agreements between our prime minister and President Obama on the question of settlements, or of possible concessions on the part of the Palestinian president.

One thing we can learn from Mitchell’s brief statement is that the US accepted Israel’s position on renewing the negotiations without preconditions, while refraining from outlining a strict timetable and defining the talks’ outcome on the core issues (something the Palestinians demanded.)

Officials in Ramallah wanted to limit the contacts to one year, after which a Palestinian state would be declared. In practice, Clinton declared an intention to complete the negotiations within a year, yet this is a target, not a deadline set as part of the terms of negotiations.

The failure to mention the settlement construction freeze in Clinton’s declaration was another “victory on paper” for Netanyahu. Still, it is unclear what he promised behind closed doors, and how he will avoid, in practice, friction vis-à-vis the Americans and Palestinians on the one hand, and his rightist coalition ministers and the settlers on the other hand.

Everything is up in the air

The American position is fairly clear. Clinton did not mention at all the issue of settlement freeze, yet warned that both sides should undertake actions that assist in promoting the US efforts, rather than hinder them. Mitchell made it clear that the US would not tolerate any act that would undermine the talks’ atmosphere and the trust between the sides. The question of construction freeze will be the biggest test to be faced by the Netanyahu government and the peace talks.

To this day, no agreement had been secured on anything beyond the fact that the leaders had been invited for dinner with Obama at the White House on September 1, and for direct talks the next day with Clinton at the State Department. American sources say there are no preliminary understandings in terms of procedure or substance – where will the talks be held, what will they talk about, and which core issues would be raised first. Mitchell says the sides will decide what to talk about. Everything will be clarified in Washington in September.

In fact, everything is up in the air. Many experienced observers are wondering where the Americans draw their optimism from as the sides are being dragged to Washington with no desire or faith that anything will come out of it. The not-so-satisfactory answer was provided by Denis Ross, a top National Security Council member and President Bill Clinton’s special peace envoy. “The gaps are real; we shouldn't have any illusions about the difficulties we are going to face,” he said. “But you are never going to get anywhere if the parties can't deal with each other directly."