Using language remarkable for its bleakness, a senior Clinton administration official Monday said the Mideast peace process is “in dire straits” after a U.S. mission failed to break a long-standing stalemate in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Further gloom was cast by remarks attributed to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright over the weekend. According to the Israeli daily Ma’ariv, Albright said that the peace process was “not moving forward” and that U.S. mediation efforts could be “nearing the end.”
“The process is in trouble,” she reportedly told American Jewish leaders. “We cannot continue this way. One option is simply for us to remove ourselves from the process.”
Whether the Clinton administration is ready to wash its hands of Mideast peacemaking remains unclear, given the vital U.S. interests in the region, but such remarks signal deepening frustration in Washington over the administration’s inability to break a negotiating deadlock that has lasted more than a year.
U.S. envoy Dennis Ross finished his weeklong trip to the region without persuading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to American ideas for further troop pullbacks from the West Bank or winning concessions from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on security issues.
“Obviously the stalemate begins to diminish the hopes people have for a very different Middle East and for building and achieving peace,” Ross said Monday after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Declaring repeatedly that the peace process is “in dire straits,” State Department spokesman James Rubin said, “We have been unable to bridge the gaps on the hard questions,” and “it’s not obvious to us what other steps we can take.”
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Rubin played down reports in the Israeli press that the United States might abandon its mediating role. But he said, “In the absence of decision by (Netanyahu and Arafat) to bridge the gaps themselves, there isn’t much the United States can do.”
Ross reportedly failed to obtain promises from Arafat to take specific steps on cracking down on terrorism. Netanyahu has insisted that it is up to Israel to define its security needs and that the scope of the next pullback from the West Bank will be dictated by the amount of land necessary to ensure safety and by the Palestinian Authority’s measures to counter terrorism.
A U.S. proposal for bridging the gaps reportedly calls for an Israeli redeployment from 13.1 percent of the land. Netanyahu has insisted Israel can withdraw from no more than 9 percent without compromising security, but reports have circulated in Israel that a 10 percent to 12 percent pullback has been discussed.
Arafat has demanded a withdrawal from about 30 percent of the West Bank.
“It is obvious that once again American efforts at attempting to resuscitate the peace process have come face to face with Israeli intransigence,” said Hanan Ashrawi, Arafat’s minister of higher education and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
As part of its plan for ending the stalemate, the U.S. also favors a freeze on Israeli settlement activity in East Jerusalem, which Arafat wants for his capital, and on the West Bank. The U.S. proposal is designed to pave the way for so-called final status talks on issues considered most contentious: the future of Jerusalem, the extent of Palestinian self-rule and the final borders of Palestinian-controlled territory.
At his news conference, Rubin delivered an unusually candid recital of the problems besetting the peace process on other fronts.
He cited the lack of progress on so-called “interim issues” such as approval for a Palestinian airport, seaport and industrial park. He said that each side was taking “unilateral steps” that prejudged negotiations on the final status of Palestinian self-rule areas and noted that Israel was not holding peace talks with Syria or Lebanon.
Short of disengagement, the idea of formally laying out the U.S. negotiating position, either in public or in private, appears to be one of the few remaining ideas for getting the parties talking again.
White House advisers confirm that a speech has been drafted for Albright outlining elements of the administration’s plan, but no decision has been made on going ahead with it.
The risks of such a tactic are many. Netanyahu’s slim governing majority makes him dependent on conservative members opposed to giving up much more land to the Palestinians.
Even if confronted by a public U.S. position, he might feel compelled to reject it to hold his coalition together. That would damage the administration’s negotiating authority and prestige without ending the problem.
Netanyahu has lobbied feverishly to block a public presentation of the U.S. position, not wanting any distance in public with Israel’s closest ally.
The White House has stepped up public discussion in recent weeks of what may come next in what at first appeared to be an attempt to pressure Israel into concessions but increasingly looks like real options.
“It has been clear from the guidance I had coming out here that both (Albright) and the president believe that it is important to bring this process to a conclusion,” Ross said late Sunday after a visit to Gaza.
“But the president and the secretary will make the decision on when it is appropriate to do so.”
In the West Bank town of Ramallah, at least one Palestinian man was killed Monday by a car bomb reportedly intended for an attack in Israel.
There also was violence in several Palestinian towns to mark Land Day, the formal observance of the loss of lands to Israel. Clashes were reported in Ramallah, Bethlehem and El Bireh.