Peace Talks

As I prepare for the national gathering in Washington pertaining to Israel's request for $10 billion in loan guarantees, I felt it imperative that I respond to your Sept. 11 editorial. You cite that the Bush Administration seeks "to give direct Arab-Israel negotiations a chance to get started in as unclouded a political atmosphere as possible." In reality, the only linkage that has been put forth has been that of the Administration. The loan guarantees must be understood to be a request to borrow $10 billion from commercial banks to assist Israel in its absorption and resettlement of nearly 1 million Soviet and Ethiopian Jews.

KABUL, Afghanistan - A brazen daytime assassination on Sunday offered a grim reminder of stymied progress in a key part of NATO's effort to wind down the Afghan war: peace talks with the Taliban. Arsala Rahmani, a senior member of the Afghan government body set up to conduct negotiations with the militant group, was shot and killed while traveling by car through the Afghan capital, police said. Coming less than nine months after the assassination of the head of the High Peace Council, the killing cast yet more gloom over Western-backed efforts to bring the insurgents to the bargaining table.

It is unfortunate that the direct Palestinian-Israeli peace talks that got underway this week are saddled with an Israeli prime minister who has made clear his unwillingness to reach an equitable two-state solution. Nine years ago, in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, Benjamin Netanyahu was secretly recorded voicing his opinions of the Oslo accords reached during negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians in 1993. "They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords]

JERUSALEM — The surprise unity government announced Tuesday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has many observers predicting that the reformed coalition will embark on a more moderate path, including reopening talks with Palestinians and softening rhetoric on attacking Iran. The addition of the centrist Kadima party to what has been called one of Israel's most right-wing coalition governments gives Netanyahu a comfortable 78% majority in the parliament, lessening the clout of small right-wing parties and factions.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, trying to coax Palestinian leaders to restart peace talks with Israel, said Saturday that Israel was offering "unprecedented" concessions to limit the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Clinton's remarks moved the Obama administration closer to Israel's position and further from that of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has refused to return to negotiations without a total freeze on settlement activity on land Palestinians claim for a future state.

The latest round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which began this week in Washington, leaves even the most loquacious Middle East experts without much to say. No bold offers have emerged from either side, and President Obama has yet to show the blend of grit, gregariousness and ingenuity that made Bill Clinton an effective mediator. All we can expect with certainty are more bouts of brinksmanship. The problem is even tougher than most pessimists realize. It goes far beyond Israel's refusal to suspend settlement construction in the West Bank or the Palestinian Authority's struggle to curb Hamas, the terrorist group that shot four Jewish settlers to death this week in an attempt to derail the talks.

A year after peace talks collapsed, Israelis and Palestinians appear headed back to the negotiating table -- just not the same table. A U.S.-backed proposal to launch so-called proximity talks moved forward Wednesday when the Arab League gave its blessing for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to join the effort. Under the American plan, U.S. Middle East envoy George J. Mitchell will meet separately with Israelis and Palestinians in hopes of narrowing their differences and getting both sides back in the same room.

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to put the bad start to their relationship behind them and pledged Tuesday to work together toward face-to-face peace talks in the Middle East. Netanyahu predicted that direct negotiations with the Palestinians could begin this summer, and he promised "concrete steps" to move the process along in a "very robust way." But neither leader indicated there had been significant progress during their White House meeting on the issues that hinder prospects for the talks.

Israelis have seen it before. A hawkish leader expected to be tough on the Palestinian issue instead embarks on a game-changing path to end the conflict. Menachem Begin did it. So did Yitzhak Rabin. Ariel Sharon split apart his right-wing Likud Party by withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. Now, with the second round of new peace talks set to open Tuesday, Israelis are wondering whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a tough-talking longtime critic of the peace process, is preparing to be the next to seek a deal with the Palestinians, or whether he is going through the motions to appease the U.S. so that he won't be blamed for the collapse of the Washington-brokered talks.

  Every time Pakistan hammered out peace agreements with militants, the results were disastrous. The groups grew stronger, and the toll their bomb blasts took on civilians steadily rose. That history explains why anxiety is rippling through the country as talk builds of the prospect for peace negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban, the homegrown insurgency responsible for most of the suicide bombings and terrorist strikes that have killed thousands of people in recent years.

Ten years ago, peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia collapsed after the rebel group hijacked a plane and kidnapped a high-profile senator. Since then more than 20,000 rebels and paramilitary fighters have been killed in combat with military forces, according to the Washington Office on Latin America. Now, the FARC says it is ready to negotiate and has renounced its long-standing practice of kidnapping for profit. Its promise to end abductions and to release 10 soldiers and police officers held captive for more than a decade in jungle camps are significant and welcome developments - and something the FARC never agreed to in past peace talks.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday sought to secure help from Pakistani leaders in facilitating peace talks with Pakistan-based Afghan Taliban leaders, while the militant group denied any interest in negotiating with an "impotent" administration. Karzai's visit to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, came amid reports that he had said in an interview that the U.S. and Afghan governments had begun secret talks with the Afghan Taliban. In recent months, U.S. officials have been meeting with Taliban envoys to discuss the establishment of a Taliban office in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.

Members of Congress are reacting sharply to a plan being considered by the White House to transfer abroad five of the most dangerous prisoners from Guantanamo Bay as a gesture to the Taliban in advance of Afghanistan peace talks. It would be the first time detainees from the "too dangerous to transfer" list have been relocated outside of U.S. control. The swift opposition from leading Republicans underscored President Obama's continuing difficulty to deliver on his promise to shut down the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Islamist militants on Thursday claimed responsibility for killing 15 Pakistani paramilitary troops this week, dealing a serious setback to the prospect of peace talks between Islamabad and the country's homegrown insurgency. The bodies of the men, abducted in December from a fort near the Afghan border, were found in the village of Shewa in North Waziristan, a tribal region that serves as a stronghold for several Pakistani and Afghan insurgent groups, local officials said. The victims were members of the Frontier Constabulary, which patrols the volatile tribal districts along the border.

  Every time Pakistan hammered out peace agreements with militants, the results were disastrous. The groups grew stronger, and the toll their bomb blasts took on civilians steadily rose. That history explains why anxiety is rippling through the country as talk builds of the prospect for peace negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban, the homegrown insurgency responsible for most of the suicide bombings and terrorist strikes that have killed thousands of people in recent years.

Friday morning, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee — along with her country's president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Yemeni activist Tawakul Karman — was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A decade ago, this moment would have seemed unthinkable. But Gbowee's triumph, like last spring's Arab uprisings, is a powerful reminder that in the 21st century world, change often comes from the bottom — not from a country's armies but its people. In 2001, Liberia was in the grip of a civil war that had been going on for years and that had decimated the country.

Re "Israelis Try to Shore Up Support in L.A. for Peace Talks," Sept 19: In your article I am quoted, referring to a recent national survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee, as saying that the study reveals "a growing mistrust of Palestinian intentions." The quote is accurate, but only part of what I said and thus potentially misleading. On the one hand, by margins of more than 4 to 1, American Jews continue to support the overall Israeli approach to the peace talks and by margins of 3 to 1, or better, the specific Palestinian and Syrian tracks.

Israel gave preliminary approval Tuesday to the construction of about 1,100 new housing units in East Jerusalem, brushing aside pleas from U.S. and European diplomats to delay the controversial project as they attempt to restart peace talks. The Interior Ministry's green light will clear the way for a significant expansion of the Jewish development of Gilo, on land seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War. Critics said the move is a setback for the Mideast "quartet" —the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia — which last week issued a call for Israelis and Palestinians to resume direct talks within the next month.

The United States and other world powers unveiled an eleventh-hour plan Friday to try to renew stalled Middle East peace talks, hours after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas made an emotional plea to the United Nations Security Council to grant the statehood that his people have failed to win in 18 years of negotiations with Israel. The skeletal proposal by the so-called diplomatic quartet — the United States, Russia, the European Union and the U.N. — calls for Israelis and Palestinians to each offer comprehensive plans within three months of resuming talks and to finish the entire negotiation by the end of 2012.