In This Article
Subscribe to International UpdatesPeace Negotiators Converge on Israel
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Tony Blair, in his new role as special Middle East envoy, and Arab League representatives arrived in Israel this week on separate missions to try to revive the peace process.
30-Second Summary
Tony Blair, who stood down as British prime minister last month, made his first visit to Israel in his job as a Middle East negotiator on Monday.
He represents the Quartet, which comprises Russia, the European Union, the United Nations and the United States, in its bid to negotiate a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
To some commentators, Blair is a peculiar choice as envoy. He is seen as carrying cumbersome baggage in the form of his close ties to President George W. Bush and his support for the Iraq War.
However, he has a proven record in mediating between sectarian groups in Northern Ireland.
There were other visitors to Israel seeking to play the role of peacemaker. Arab League representatives made a historic visit to the country whose legitimacy the league refused to recognize for many years.
The drive for peace comes at a time when the conflict is complicated by the split in the Palestinian leadership, now divided between Fatah on the West Bank and the more militant Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Arab League proposes Israel’s withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders. That issue will be key in any future peace plan.
He represents the Quartet, which comprises Russia, the European Union, the United Nations and the United States, in its bid to negotiate a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
To some commentators, Blair is a peculiar choice as envoy. He is seen as carrying cumbersome baggage in the form of his close ties to President George W. Bush and his support for the Iraq War.
However, he has a proven record in mediating between sectarian groups in Northern Ireland.
There were other visitors to Israel seeking to play the role of peacemaker. Arab League representatives made a historic visit to the country whose legitimacy the league refused to recognize for many years.
The drive for peace comes at a time when the conflict is complicated by the split in the Palestinian leadership, now divided between Fatah on the West Bank and the more militant Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Arab League proposes Israel’s withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders. That issue will be key in any future peace plan.
Headline Links: Blair's "sense of possibility" and the Arab League's visit to Jerusalem
After meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in his first visit to the region as an appointed international diplomat, Tony Blair said that he felt “a sense of possibility.” He does not intend to meet with anyone from Hamas, which the United States and the United Nations class as a terrorist organization, though Blair may communicate with Hamas through intermediaries.
Source: The New York Times
The visit to Israel by the Arab League envoys represents a historic change in direction, according to the Associated Press. The league, comprising 22 member states, actively pursued Israel’s destruction after the Jewish nation came into existence in 1948. Only recently has it recognized Israel’s legitimacy.
Source: The Boston Globe
Background: Bush's Mideast policy, Abbas, and the rise of Hamas
President George W. Bush
President Bush gave a speech on July 17, 2007, laying out American foreign policy towards Israel and Palestine. The independent think-tank The Century Foundation was blunt in its assessment: “It’s more of the same with even less chance of success.” Whereas American policy in Iraq “is belatedly focusing on internal political reconciliation,” on Palestine, Bush continues “to mistakenly conflate Hamas with al-Qaida and the Taliban and, in so doing, almost guarantees the failure of his approach.”
Source: The Century Foundation
The tag line for the president's speech is, on the State Department Web site, "International community must stand with those working for peace." Those being stood by are primarily President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad of Fatah, who are now isolated on the West Bank.
Source: The U.S. State Department
Intelligence sources within the U.S. government doubt that President Mahmoud Abbas, of Palestine, has the political clout to take on the role conceived for him by the White House, according to The Washington Post. Allegedly, U.S. intelligence is, also, said to suspect that the current American policy of isolating Hamas may prove counterproductive.
Source: The Washington Post
Hamas's victory in the January 2006 election is a result of two parallel developments, writes Menahem Milson, professor of Arab languages and literature at Hebrew University. One is the resurgence of Islam as the primary focus of Arab identity in the Middle East. The other is Fatah’s failure to make the transition from resistance movement to government, which resulted in numerous instances of corruption.
Source: The Middle East Media Research Institute
Opinion: Who should negotiate?
Tony Blair
This Op-Ed article, written as a Q&A session, attributes Blair’s role with the Quartet as “a parting gift to the outgoing prime minister from George Bush.” His reputation as “Bush’s poodle” and the distrust of the Palestinians will “not necessarily” be an insurmountable problem, since the “the Palestinians need all the help they can get.” Notwithstanding their desperate need for help and Blair’s previous success in Northern Ireland, this British journalist is unambiguous in assessing his chances of success: “slim.”
Source: The Independent
“From the earliest attempts at peacemaking … special Middle East peace envoys have come, have met with intransigence and left disenchanted,” writes Claude Salhani. Salhani does note two exceptions: former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, who negotiated an armistice between Syria and Israel, and former President Jimmy Carter, who oversaw the Camp David accords, which brought peace between Israel and Egypt. Whether Blair can achieve a similar success depends on whether his proven ability as a negotiator can overcome the distrust he will meet because of his close ties to President Bush.
Source: World Peace Herald
Tony Blair’s proven skills in diplomacy make him ideal for the role of Middle East envoy, argues The Times of London. Blair honed his abilities in Northern Ireland, building on the progress of his Conservative Party predecessors. Blair has an “alchemist’s gifts of cajoling, threatening and charming implacable enemies into seeing the merit of finally working together in a spirit of mutual respect, if not regard.”
Source: The Times of London
Peace Initiative
Neither the Arab League nor the U.S. peace initiatives of this week are alone going to bring a solution to the Israel–Palestinian conflict, according to this writer for Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. Both outside parties offer only half solutions and it is up to Israel to “begin speedy and serious negotiations with the Palestinians.”
Source: Ha'aretz
History: Israel's founding to the Six-Day War
Israel
Israel was founded after World War II under the auspices of the United Nations. The Arab states of the Middle East refused to endorse the UN plan for the creation of a Jewish homeland on territory that was part of what was then known as Palestine.
When in 1948 the British mandate to govern Palestine ended, Israel declared independence, and five Arab armies attacked the fledging state. Over 15 months of fighting, Israel repelled the attackers and, in doing so, took more land than was originally apportioned it by the United Nations. Non-Jewish residents fled from both within the original borders of Israel and from the land that had been annexed, becoming the first of the Palestinian refugees.
Israel was founded after World War II under the auspices of the United Nations. The Arab states of the Middle East refused to endorse the UN plan for the creation of a Jewish homeland on territory that was part of what was then known as Palestine.
When in 1948 the British mandate to govern Palestine ended, Israel declared independence, and five Arab armies attacked the fledging state. Over 15 months of fighting, Israel repelled the attackers and, in doing so, took more land than was originally apportioned it by the United Nations. Non-Jewish residents fled from both within the original borders of Israel and from the land that had been annexed, becoming the first of the Palestinian refugees.
The entire region now divided between Israelis and Palestinians was under British control in 1917, during World War I, when it was called Palestine. In that year, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Arthur Balfour, signed a Cabinet-approved document stating, “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Zionist groups have cited the “Balfour Declaration” as an expression of international approval for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Source: Yale
In 1922, when the British government received a U.N. mandate to , still overseeing Palestine at the time, issued a policy statement defining its position on the issue of a Jewish state in the region. The government sought to “draw attention to the fact that the terms of the Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded ‘in Palestine.’”
Source: Yale
Calls for an independent Jewish state became louder after World War II and the Holocaust. The United Nations passed a resolution creating such a state, but the Arab countries in the region refused to endorse it. In 1948, when Israel declared its independence, five Arab nations attacked the new country. In the subsequent conflict Israel expanded the territory apportioned to it by the United Nations, and in this conflict the first Palestinian refugees came into being, as detailed in The Washington Post’s interactive guide to the history of Palestinian-Israeli strife.
Source: The Washington Post
"Of the 860,000 Arabs who had lived in areas of Palestine that became Israel, only 133,000 remained. Some 470,000 moved into refugee camps on the West Bank ... or the Gaza Strip ... The rest dispersed to Lebanon, Syria, and other countries," writes science professor Stephen R. Shalom of William Paterson University, who provides a history of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Q&A form.
Source: Professor Stephen R. Shalom
The BBC has a section dedicated to the Middle East crisis. The emphasis is on recent news, but there are also links to pages on the history of the troubles.
Source: The BBC
Six-Day War
Israel began to expect an attack was imminent when Egypt’s President Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt sent troops into the Sinai, the isthmus of land joining Egypt to Israel, and set up a naval blockade around the Red Sea port town of Eilat. In June 1967, Israel acted pre-emptively to counter the strike it alleged was being planned by the neighboring Arab states.
In responding as it did, Israel won a decisive victory, not only crushing the armed forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, but also occupying territory in the Sinai, the Golan Heights, Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The war is widely seen as a turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Afterwards, there was little doubt that Israel possessed the upper hand militarily, and the Palestinians despaired of receiving effective military assistance.
The Arab League’s peace plan introduced to Israel on July 25, 2007, focuses on Israel’s withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967.
Israel began to expect an attack was imminent when Egypt’s President Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt sent troops into the Sinai, the isthmus of land joining Egypt to Israel, and set up a naval blockade around the Red Sea port town of Eilat. In June 1967, Israel acted pre-emptively to counter the strike it alleged was being planned by the neighboring Arab states.
In responding as it did, Israel won a decisive victory, not only crushing the armed forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, but also occupying territory in the Sinai, the Golan Heights, Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The war is widely seen as a turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Afterwards, there was little doubt that Israel possessed the upper hand militarily, and the Palestinians despaired of receiving effective military assistance.
The Arab League’s peace plan introduced to Israel on July 25, 2007, focuses on Israel’s withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967.
Source: Encarta Encyclopedia
From the long perspective of the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, Israel’s success in that conflict “has come to look like one of history’s pyrrhic victories,” writes The Economist. The “completeness of the triumph” became a problem for both Israelis and Palestinians. Among the former, it gave birth to a “religious-nationalist movement intent on permanent colonization of the occupied lands.” For the Palestinians, their situation became more desperate: “The 1967 war reunited them under Israeli control and so sharpened their own thwarted hunger for statehood.”
Source: The Economist
Most Recent Beyond The Headlines
© 2012 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
