How’s the Peace Process Going?

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
04 November '10

The direct non-peace talks stopped being direct more than a month ago. Obama has tried to bribe and cajole Bibi into extending the settlement moratorium. It hasn’t worked, and the longer the hiatus, the less likely it seems that the talks would resume. And don’t expect things to improve, given the midterm elections’ results.

Elliott Abrams explains:

There is one clear bottom line from this election: Obama emerges from it a weakened president. And that, says ex-U.S. diplomat Elliott Abrams, means that “anyone who is trying to resist him feels probably that resistance is a little easier.” That will probably hold true in the case of the Middle East peace talks, where the U.S. president has been pushing the Israelis and Palestinians to come to an accord.

Now, says Abrams, “both sides out there [will] feel a little bit freer to push back.” And they’re almost certainly not the only ones who will see it that way. This election clearly does not make Barack Obama’s job as America’s diplomat in chief any easier.

In fact, there is so much downtime for the peace-talk negotiating team that its members are actually spending time talking to outside experts on efforts to promote democratization in Egypt. Maybe this is for real and bespeaks a recognition that their current sloth is a moral embarrassment and a strategic error. Or maybe this is just for show. But it also says something about the state of the non-peace, non-talks:

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