Mideast Peace Talks' Hidden Threat

Jonathan Schanzer
Politico
01 September '10

(A number of good questions. Y.)

Some 46 percent of Israelis believe that President Barack Obama is "pro-Palestinian," according to a Smith Research poll this summer. Since then, that figure most likely has ticked higher. After all, in July, the president upgraded the Palestinian delegation's diplomatic status in Washington, and the peace talks that start Thursday are designed to lead inexorably to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state by the end of his first term.

Supporters of Israel bitterly assert that Obama has done more for the Palestinians than any other president in history. But they may be wrong. Obama may not yet know it, but the new peace talks could single-handedly destroy the Palestinian cause.

Put simply, the Palestinians are at war. In 2006, Hamas, the faction best known for its suicide bombing campaign of the 1990s, won legislative elections that earned it the right to form a governing coalition. Fatah, its longtime leading rival, refused to play ball, prompting a 15-month political standoff. And in June 2007, Hamas launched a bloody coup in the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of Fatah members and shooting some in the legs to leave them crippled.

After the coup, Hamas retained control of Gaza, where it maintains an iron grip. Fatah still clings to power in the West Bank. And the conflict continues, with spats and flare-ups reported regularly by news agencies and human rights groups in both fiefdoms.

By pushing new peace talks between Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian National Authority, Obama has officially excised the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip from the equation. Indeed, he has effectively put a halt to a Palestinian "peace process" that has been sputtering since the summer of 2007.

(Read full article)

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