Peace in Jerusalem essays

Peace in Jerusalem essays Just as Madeleine Albright was heading to the Middle East, peace talks were already starting to deteriorate. "The chief Palestinian negotiator, angry about accelerated construction plans at Jewish settlements in the disputed West Bank, said he would no longer discuss anything with Israel except the settlements, which the Palestinians and much of the international community consider illegal." 1 This of course disrupted any chance of a "broad settlement to end a century of conflict". 2 Albright arrived in Saudi Arabia late Monday night, the 6th of December, and on to Syria for talks with President Hafex Assad yesterday, arriving in Israel sometime late today. These negotiations were to be a final Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty. They were to be completed within a year17. With this new problem, however, they ground to a halt. According to Abed-Rabbo, "We have stressed to the Israelis that this issue is creating a major obstacle in the path of the final-status negotiations". 3 This issue must be finalized before any further agreements can be made. The negotiators from the United States were "disappointed but not entirely surprised by the latest turn of events. It is hardly uncommon, on the eve of a visit by a U.S. secretary of state, for one side or another to seek tactical advantage by manufacturing a crisis." 4 This ruse is very possibly a way for the Palestinians to pull the U.S. into the negotiations, "to compensate for their weak negotiating position relative to Israel." 5 The "Israeli officials dismissed the dispute as artificial, created by the Palestinians in the hope of drawing Albright into a direct mediation role during her two-day stop here". 6 This is not an unfamiliar situation for the U.S. negotiators as they prepare to come into the region, "similar crisis often have occurred in the negotiation process as American envoys have made preparations to come to the region, and they said it was not yet clea...