Are Netanyahu-Abbas-Obama convening for photo-op?
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The formal dining room at the White House was set by the U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
When the meal is over and the table cleared, Netanyahu and Abbas will start working. Both leaders are slated to meet U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday for a joint announcement on the official launching of the direct peace negotiations.
The talks will then be moved to the Middle East. The exact location of where they will be held has not yet been determined, whether in Cairo, Ramallah or Jerusalem.
Moreover, the more important and real question now is whether the renewal of direct talks, following an 18-month lull, stand a chance to succeed and lead the sides to a much desirable peace agreement. The overwhelming majority of Israeli pundits, academics and analysts do not hang much hope in that.
Reluctant trip?
Analysts believed Netanyahu and Abbas themselves reluctantly boarded their flights to Washington to heed the invitation by Obama, and both leaders knew that the gaps in their needs and demands situate the chance of success at near zero.
"The problem is that the contour lines of a peace agreement that each side drew are almost like parallel lines that will never meet," wrote the daily Yedioth Aharonot political analyst Shimon Shiefer on Tuesday.
Shiefer said it seemed highly unlikely that Netanyahu and Abbas, just like all Israeli and Palestinian leaders who preceded them, will be able to reach an agreement on the core issues of the conflict:
A Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital; allowing hundreds of thousands of descendants of Palestinian refugees to return and live in Israel; Israeli demands for uncompromising security measures; and evacuating tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from their homes in the West Bank for the future Palestinian state.
"Netanyahu is going to Washington for a photograph," wrote Yediot Aharonot leading political commentator Nahum Barnea, "He is not different than Barack Obama, Mahmoud Abbas, Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict produced many ceremonies since September 1973. Next week's ceremony is unique in the sense that this time both sides are arriving feeling the same: both don't believe that something will come out of it."
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