LONDON, 8 January 2003 — Israel’s refusal to let senior Palestinians attend a conference in London next week has dimmed, if not doomed, a British-led effort to prevent the quest for Middle East peace from being eclipsed by Iraqi war clouds. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s move followed a double suicide bombing that killed 22 people in Tel Aviv on Sunday.
Britain has urged Israel to reconsider and US Secretary of State Colin Powell voiced regret at the Israeli decision, but there was little sign on Tuesday that the Jan. 14 talks, which were to have discussed Palestinian reforms demanded by Washington as a condition for statehood, would go ahead. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, alive to the peril of ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while heading toward war with Iraq, had invited the Palestinians for talks with members of the "quartet" of Middle East mediators — the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia. Israel and the United States had rebuffed Blair’s earlier call for an international conference. Diplomats and analysts say there is now little hope of progress before Israeli elections on Jan. 28, or indeed before the Iraq conflict is resolved.
"To my mind there is a series of trans-Atlantic disagreements of which differences over how to tackle the Middle East is the most serious," a senior European diplomat said. "Blair is trying to bridge the gap and he has Iraq as well as the Middle East conflict in mind," the diplomat said. "If there is no smoking gun to go to war against (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein, it’s very difficult to get public support to send your people to be killed. But it can help if you show a very clear engagement on the Middle East."
Blair has written to Sharon in a last-ditch bid to rescue next week’s meeting. His spokesman said on Tuesday Blair had explained the "full context" of the talks, focused on the "narrow and important issue of Palestinian Authority reform". Israel’s decision dismayed Arabs and Europeans, but US officials have declined to criticize it. "It doesn’t bode well for the whole quartet initiative," said Anoush Ehteshami, professor of Middle East studies at Durham University, referring to a "roadmap" proposed by the group to achieve peace and Palestinian statehood by 2005.
While saying it would be hard for any Likud government to sit down with the Palestinians just before elections, Ehteshami questioned whether Israel had any interest in the Palestinian reforms which the London conference was to have examined. "I’m not sure they (the Israelis) are interested in political reform that would provide a more efficient and accountable Palestinian leadership," he said. "They would lose the scapegoat element of being able to blame everything on (Palestinian President Yasser) Arafat. And reform could revive the national consensus in Palestine."
The EU, along with pro-Western Arab states like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, has long argued that Washington must use its clout to achieve a just Middle East peace that would assuage legitimate Arab grievances if it is to win its "war on terror". The European diplomat said that with military action against Iraq looming, it was even more important for the United States to show it was committed to resolving the Palestinian issue.
Palestinians say Sharon is determined to thwart any progress on reform that might ultimately expose Israel to US pressure to make concessions for peace, such as freezing settlement activity or making withdrawals from occupied Arab land. "Sharon used the suicide bombings, the security crisis, to block diplomatic initiatives," Michael Tarazi, a member of the Palestinian delegation to the London talks, told Reuters. (R)
