Middle East Peace Talks

?November 28, 2007, OPTIMISM, OPTIMISM FOR PEACE. This is Good News! PAUL SLADKUS, FOUNDER OF GOODNEWSBROADCAST. We have included some comments from the NY Times on some of their thoughts. 12:34 pm Q & A: Approval Ratings, Pessimism and Annapolis By Mike Nizza As the Middle East peace process restarts down in Annapolis, Md., The Lede asked one of The New York Timess resident experts to answer a few questions. Ethan Bronner is deputy foreign editor until next year, when he will move back to Jerusalem as bureau chief. Mr. Bronner was the Jerusalem correspondent for The Boston Globe from 1991 to 1997 and for Reuters from 1983 to 1985. Three leaders with approval ratings in the thirties walk into the Memorial Hall at the Naval Academy in Annapolis and say they want to bring peace to the Middle East. How likely is it that theyll succeed? The approval ratings of the leaders: Generally, taking big political steps requires strong political leadership. Weak leaders are rarely in a position to take bold steps. That truism still holds. But it is also true that all three see this process as a potential political lifeline for them a chance to reverse their political declines. Sari Nusseibeh, the Palestinian philosopher, said in his autobiography that came out earlier this year that his father always told him rubble makes the best building material. Whether or not that is true, it is a motto that these three leaders may now feel the need to place their faith in. It didnt take long for the http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-usmide1128,0,894759.story?coll=ny_home_rail_headlines”>skeptics to sound off on Tuesday. How far from the mark is a prediction from Mustafa Barghouti, a former Palestinian negotiator, that the whole thing will be forgotten within one week because the joint statement avoided historic sticking points especially the borders of a Palestinian state and Jerusalem? Skepticism (even pessimism) has always been my close companion when analyzing events in the Middle East. It has served me well over more than two decades and I see no reason to abandon it now. So Barghouti has a point. But as you note President Bush having said, it is worth a try. It has always been the case that Middle East peacemaking is based on a wager that the act of negotiating, of each side offering to compromise, would somehow melt the ice of mistrust and anger of the other side, thereby leading to a breakthrough. Unlike some disputes, the outlines for the solution of this one have been evident for some years, so whenever anyone talks about making peace, the elements of the deal seem reasonably clear. It is also worth mentioning that while agreement feels farther away than, say, a decade ago, the consensus in Israel for the acceptability, even necessity, of a Palestinian state, is greater than ever. That offers some basis for optimism. The final document wasnt ready until http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hS1oq_EW-fKuLV1YVT4JExgsgQSQD8T6CMSO0eight minutes before President Bush read it for the cameras. Is it a rule that Mideast peace talks absolutely must go down to the wire? Peace deals in the Middle East always go down to the last minute. The most famous moment of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking was the 1993 handshake between Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister, and Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, on the South Lawn of the White House, yet until the very end both sides were threatening to stay away. Fifteen minutes before the ceremony, Dennis Ross, the peace talks negotiator, was on one phone shouting at the Palestinians while on the other phone Martin Indyk, a top American official at the time, was shouting at the Israelis. In 1994, when the next phase of that deal was signed in Cairo, Arafat refused to sign a map outlining the contours of Jericho while the actual ceremony was taking place. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had to force his hand. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/q-a-approval-ratings-pessimism-and-annapolis/index.html?hp”> amp;friend*from The New York Times?