Here we go again?
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As the Clinton administration's ambassador to Israel and then its assistant secretary of state responsible for the Middle East, Martin Indyk was centrally involved in president Bill Clinton's abortive bid to foster a permanent peace accord between Israel and the Palestinian leadership.
Such familiarity doubtless helps explain his skepticism about the chances for the Bush administration to succeed where the Clinton administration didn't.
The spectacular bust-up at Camp David in 2000 came despite the long years of personal US presidential involvement, despite the considerable optimism that prevailed back then on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, and despite the fact that the Palestinians, then, had a leader who could genuinely claim to speak for most of his people.
Today, by contrast, as Indyk points out, the president has only now given Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the kind of "political mandate" essential to brokering even the first steps at resuming a dialogue. Moreover, he notes, the administration is making a sudden push for peace only at the very end of its term - seeking dramatic progress as its time runs out, which is, as Indyk dryly observes, exactly what would-be president Bush castigated the Clinton administration for doing.
Worst of all, though, in Indyk's view, is the current administration's failure to appreciate that the Palestinians are today entirely incapable of taking effective responsibility for territory that Israel would relinquish within the parameters of a peace accord. If the terrorism-battered Israeli public is not convinced that it has an effective security partner, he reasons, then that public will not support the deal, dooming the whole exercise.To read more: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557411432&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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