by Michael Wilner
US
SECRETARY of State John Kerry and Palestinian Authority
President
Mahmoud Abbas talk while PLO Executive Committee
member Yasser Abed
Rabbo and Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat
talk on the side during a
meeting at the presidential compound in Ramallah.
Photo: REUTERS
Gaza
has had "very negative impact" on US-Israel relations, said Martin
Indyk, former US special envoy to the Middle East process, in an
interview published this week. "It's very hard to make the argument that America now has a strategic interest in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.
"The personal relationship between the president and the prime minister has been fraught for some time and it's become more complicated by recent events." Peace talks ended in April without any progress after Kerry and Indyk forged an aggressive effort first for a comprehensive peace accord, and later for a framework for the continuation of negotiations, which the US never published.
Speaking extensively on US relations with Israel since the end of the latest round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians last April, and throughout Operation Protective Edge, a candid Indyk said at times US President Barack Obama has become "enraged" at the Israeli government, both for its actions and for its treatment of his chief diplomat, US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Some of that criticism, targeted at Kerry during his efforts to forge a ceasefire with Hamas through Qatar last month, "enraged" the president, Indyk asserted.
"The United States will do fine without a resolution of this particular conflict. As time goes on and other issues come to dominate our agenda and our interests shift, really the only reason we have left to pursue a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is because of our concern about Israel's future," Indyk said.
The former ambassador, a veteran of the conflict for enmeshed in its politics for over forty years, said that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's standard for an end to hostilities with Hamas— a prescribed return to quiet for quiet— "is not a victory and probably isn't going to be attainable."
Palestinians are taking notice of the effectiveness of extremist, violent resistance movements against the governments of Israel and Iraq, says Martin Indyk, former US special envoy to the Middle East process, in an interview published this week.
Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank "see Hamas resisting Israel and they see ISIS [the Islamic State] using violence to establish its Islamic State over in Iraq, and all Abu Mazen has to offer is negotiations as the way to achieve Palestinian statehood. And negotiations don't have any credibility anymore, 20 years after Oslo and with over 300,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank," Indyk said. Responding to the interview, the State Department— Indyk's former employer— said that Indyk is now a private citizen who speaks for himself.
Before resigning his post, Indyk gave a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy chiding both sides for their unwillingness to make political concessions. Israelis and Palestinians alike said that Indyk, and his team, shared in the blame, often contributing to a toxic environment for negotiators.
In the interview with Foreign Policy magazine, Indyk characterizes harsh Israeli criticism from its political right "hubris," contributing to a "bubble of illusion" that the Jewish state is not reliant on the US.
But "if Israel becomes a partisan issue in American politics, the US-Israel relationship will then be weaker as a result."
Michael Wilner
Source: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Former-US-diplomat-America-no-longer-has-strategic-interest-resolving-Israeli-Palestinian-conflict-372543
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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