One more ‘pause’ in the peace talks

During his recent visit to South Korea, President Barack Obama said that perhaps there is need for “pause” in the US-brokered peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis.

That came as a result of the Fateh-Hamas agreement to reach reconciliation, a move admittedly serving foremost the leaderships of the two groupings.

The question, however, is a pause from what?

There has been nothing of real value in the peace negotiations that may require a pause for deeper reflection or reassessment by the two sides.

If anything, it was a faltering, halting process through and through, one that was more on “pause” than on “play”.

Obama did not put the blame squarely on Israel for thwarting the chance given by US Secretary of State John Kerry to reach peace — and how could he?

He did, however, say that the political will to advance the peace negotiations has been lacking.

“What we haven’t seen is, frankly, the kind of political will to actually make tough decisions, and that’s been true on both sides.”

It is not like the Palestinians had a say in it all. Israel has increased settlement construction apace, has consistently shown intransigence regarding basic rights for the Palestinians and, the proverbial straw, refused to free the fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners, all the time using one stratagem or another to make Palestinians take action, any action, that could then be used to “prove” that they refuse to make peace.

How could peace talks be held under the circumstances?

Had Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas done differently, he would have risked being held in contempt by his people, especially after making a series of major concessions to Israel.

The US president came to the White House pledging to make peace in the Middle East a priority for his administration.

Nearly six years have passed since, and he has nothing to show for this promise.

One thing Obama could do is to point the finger at the side responsible for the failure of peace negotiations and act accordingly.

Sanctions worked on apartheid South Africa. There are no reasons to believe they would be less effective in Israel’s case.

Only by applying real pressure on Israel to seriously tackle with the Palestinians all the core issues dividing them can the US hope to rekindle the dying peace process.