A Handshake for Nothing

Why Barack Obama’s hastily contrived meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas is nothing but theatrics.

As if the future of the Near East region depended on it, U.S. special envoy George Mitchell spent four days trying to get Israelis and Palestinians to compromise on the settlement question. He met four times with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, twice with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – and got a categorical “No” to the suggestion that they attend a summit meeting on the subject in New York next Tuesday.

The differences were apparently too insurmountable and Mitchell returned to Washington empty-handed. But – wonder of wonders! – a summit meeting will take place after all.

One photo and a Go-ahead

President Obama and unsuccessful negotiator Mitchell hastened to present the surprise summit meeting as a sign of the intensity with which the United States was committed to the Near East peace process. In reality, it consisted of little more than a photograph and a symbolic starting gun.

A handshake between the Palestinian President and the Israeli head of state does not mean much in the Near East anymore.

Since the Oslo Accords 16 years ago, the United States has forced Israeli heads of state and Palestinian leaders to attend summits, to negotiate and to sign agreements. Over and over, these meetings have resulted in little more than photographs that, like the agreements, end up collecting dust on the rubbish heap.

Obama’s insistence on impressing the U.N. General Assembly with another Israeli-Palestinian handshake arouses the suspicion that he learned nothing from the mistakes of his predecessor.

Symbolic, fluffy summit meetings have never contributed anything to solving the ugly Near East conflict.

The impatience with which Mitchell tried to force agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians does not shine a very flattering light on the current administration’s Near East strategy, especially after promises of a new approach. Peace talks should take place out of the public’s view, not in a storm of photographic strobe lights.

An Affront to Washington

The fact that Netanyahu refuses to agree to a timetable for the cessation of Israel’s building of Jewish settlements in order to at least get peace talks started once more is an affront to Washington.

Instead of wasting time laboriously creating phony compromises, Obama should tell Israel in no uncertain terms that it has one year to cease all construction of Jewish settlements and not reward Israel for building 3,000 more residences with a little summit meeting.

And if Netanyahu remains stubborn and insists on continuing settlement expansion, Washington could respond by capping military assistance or restricting bank lending to Israel. It could also direct Israel’s attention to the 2003 Middle East Roadmap that prescribes exactly what Israel is resisting: a halt to the construction of new settlements.