Mideast peace talks: Are Israel, Palestine just going through the motions?
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Netanyahu will come to Washington in response to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's call for negotiations "without preconditions," he wrote.
Trust is absent from Israeli-Palestinian relations, as the Second Intifada of 2001-2003 killed not only thousands of Israelis and Palestinians, but also demolished the sense for most that peace is even possible, he argued.
"That popular skepticism severely constrains the negotiators' abilities to make concessions," he contended.
On Saturday, Netanyahu announced plans to end the moratorium on the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which is set to expire in September.
That threatens to derail the talks, as Abbas on Monday threatened to pull out of the negotiations if the moratorium is not extended.
The issue drove a wedge between the United States and Israel in March when Israel announced the building of 1,600 new Jewish housing units, as the Obama administration views the settlements as an obstacle to the peace process.
David Pollock, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the negotiations do not hinge solely on that issue, adding that talks could continue if the moratorium ends quietly and without a great deal of publicity.
On Friday, Clinton proposed a one-year timeline that critics said is unrealistic.
Some experts, however, said the deadline is not all that important, and argued that the Obama administration views the timeframe as more of a goal than a make-or-break deadline.
"I don't take the deadline very seriously. If the negotiations are making progress, then they'll continue, regardless of the deadline," said Pollock, adding that any plans to come to a solution within a year would be unrealistic.
