By Jay Bushinsky
November 3, 2009

American diplomacy in the Middle East and on its fringes appears to tied up in knots.  It is fraught with contradictions and inconsistencies.  This is true of the way the U.S. has been dealing with Israel and the Palestinian Authority as well as with Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As far as the latter are concerned, the Obama Administration seems to be uncertain of the course it considers most likely to crush the Taliban insurgents -- a foe which should have been kept at arms length from the standpoint of American interests -- indiscreet politically in dealing with Pakistan and unable to finish the mission undertaken by its predecessor in Iraq so that the troops there can be withdrawn.

The obsessive effort to bring about a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has been marked by ill-considered rhetoric that has upset or aggraved both sides.  This was the case when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suddenly abandoned the initial American demand that all construction work in the West Bank's Jewish settlements be halted. 

She indicated during her overnight visit to Jerusalem where she conferred with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders that a "settlement freeze" need not be and never was meant to be a condition for the resumption of negotiations.
 
She simply ignored the fact that Netanyahu refuses to go along with this idea as a prerequisite for the so-called peace process to continue.  Instead, she praised the Israeli leader for endorsing the two-state solution and accepting the prospective establishment of a Palestinian state.
 
Predictably, Israel's mass media trumpeted the secretary's statements, implying that Netanyahu's policy scored resounding success.  They sidestepped the angry reaction voiced by the Authority's chief negotiator,

Saeb Erekat and the fact that it was publicized shortly after the news conference convened by Clinton and Netanyahu.  (They spoke and answered questions live on TV and radio before the start of their official rendezvous here.)
 
"If America cannot get Israel to implement a settlement freeze, what chances do Palestinians have of reaching agreement with Israel on permanent-status issues?" he asked.  Erekat added that without a settlement freeze there will be no Palestinian state.
 
His words were a bitter rebuttal to Clinton's ebullient remarks.  "What the prime minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlement which he has just described -- no more starts, for example -- is unprecedented in the context of prior-to negotiations," she said.  (Clinton backtracked as soon as she arrived in Morocco directly from Israel.  She reportedly told a pan-Arab conference there that Netanyahu's restraint was insufficient.)

Referring to Netanyahu's call for the resumption of bi-lateral talks without any prior conditions on Israel's part, she said:  "There's never been such an offer from any Israeli government and we hope that we'll be able to move into the negotiations where all the issues that President Obama mentioned in his speech at the United Nations will be on the table for the parties to begin to resolve."

The Palestinians' Arabic press reacted with unmitigated rage.  "Al-Hayat al-Jadida," a newspaper that faithfully reflects the PA's viewpoints, asked: "Why, Mrs. Hillary?  "How much did the Zionists pay you as a bribe?"  It called her statement, "Words that hurt truth with cruelty and wallow in the swamp of lies." Predictably, the angry Palestinian rhetoric that ensued -- especially from the PA's spokesperson as well as commentators in the Arabic media -- is based on the belief that President Obama has gone back on his word. 

They evidently recall presidential statements advocating a halt to Israeli construction in the West Bank.  Although the hard-line Hamas gave no credence to the President's words, the PA assumed that it has a faithful friend in the White House and assumed a degree of self-confidence which came as no surprise to Israeli experts in Arab political behavior.

Underlying this response is the oratorical overture to the Arab and Muslim world voiced by President in the watershed speech to its minions which he delivered in Cairo.  It created the impression that the U.S. not only was going to be even-handed in its dealings with Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but also was tilting in the PA's direction.

 The result of all this is a diplomatic stalemate.  Presidential Envoy George Mitchell is farther from his goal of jump-starting the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that at any time since his mission began.  His fortunes may improve after Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak confer with Administration leaders in Washington, DC, later this month, but Palestinian insistence on the "settlement freeze" and President Mahmoud Abbas' internal problems in the run-up to an uncertain Palestinian election may prolong the deadlock anyway.

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