President Obama's personal push to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will face a tough early hurdle in simply getting the two sides to agree on a starting point for negotiations, according to Israeli and Palestinian analysts.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and key members of his administration have expressed doubt about the outlook for final-status talks, arguing that core issues such as the fate of Jerusalem and the drawing of borders cannot be resolved until Palestinians' institutions have been strengthened and their society has clearly turned against the use of anti-Israel violence.
Palestinians, meanwhile, have said they expect talks to resume where they left off with the previous Israeli government. Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, had opened discussion even on sensitive issues such as the return of Palestinian refugees.
Although Netanyahu has said he is willing to return to the table "without preconditions," his government has made clear that he will not offer concessions easily and that the Palestinians will have to make "tough choices" to ensure progress.
"We are willing to discuss all the core issues. Obviously, we have our positions," said Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev. "The prime minister has said repeatedly that, ultimately, the Palestinian leadership has to make a choice."
The Israeli positions include demands that Jerusalem remain undivided -- Palestinians want part of the city designated as the capital of their future state -- and that Palestinian refugees not be allowed to return to Israel.
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"If that is the beginning, then one can expect the talks to be a big failure," said Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian politician and analyst. Like many Palestinians, Barghouti said he was disappointed that Obama was unable to persuade Israel to freeze construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. A settlement freeze is part of the "road map" peace agreement Israel signed in 2003. It is unclear whether Obama intends to follow the document or pursue another path, Barghouti said, noting that the deal has largely been dropped from the discussions.
Since taking office, Obama and members of his administration have mentioned the road map, related negotiations started under the Bush administration in Annapolis in 2007 and the 2002 Arab peace initiative as relevant to the current discussions. But Obama officials have not announced an explicit plan of their own.
In urging Tuesday that the two sides immediately resume final-status negotiations aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state, however, Obama is reviving the strategy used by Bush in the waning years of his administration. Obama said immediate talks are needed to take advantage of the momentum he is trying to build toward a regional peace deal.
But the breakdown of the Bush-sponsored Annapolis process is often cited by members of Netanyahu's Likud faction who are doubtful that final-status talks can succeed.
Those discussions "yielded Israeli concessions but few, if any, reciprocal Palestinian ones," Netanyahu's national security adviser, Uzi Arad, wrote in a December essay that called for "an end to 'endism,' to the approach that believes we are within reach of resolving everything in one fell swoop." Other members of Netanyahu's administration have since talked about "managing" the conflict for the long term or have said they thought a Palestinian state would not be practical for at least a decade.
"If Obama thinks he can finish it fast -- it is much more complicated," said Danny Danon, a member of parliament from Likud.
Jibril Rajoub, a member of the ruling Palestinian Fatah party in the West Bank and a former Palestinian security chief, said a failure to achieve political progress would be dangerous for the region.
"Netanyahu has to realize and to weigh his steps. If he wants to push us into a corner and talk about defeating us, then I think he is dragging all of us into a cycle of violence and bloodshed," Rajoub said. "I hope that [he] will realize, and that the people in Israel will realize, that the only way to achieve peace and security is to put an end to the occupation."
Obama has expressed a sense of urgency about resolving the conflict, and he used a portion of his U.N. General Assembly speech on Wednesday to discuss his hope for broad Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist as well as for "the end of the occupation that began in 1967 and a realization of the potential of the Palestinian people."
Yaron Ezrahi, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said that in the context of a broader peace initiative led by Obama, Netanyahu might prove more flexible than his rhetoric indicates.
"Whether he is building himself up as a tough negotiator in order to deliver the best possible deal to Israel or whether he is building himself up as a tough negotiator in order to blow up the negotiations, I think he will decide on the way," Ezrahi said.
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