JERUSALEM: Washington’s Middle East envoy George Mitchell was on Monday heading to the region for talks with both sides as the Obama administration attempted to keep alive the battered peace process.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed US decision to abandon attempts to secure a new Israeli settlement freeze and return to indirect talks could in fact boost the peace process.
"The US has understood after a year and half that we were in a pointless discussion about the marginal issue of building in settlements," Netanyahu told a business conference in Tel Aviv.
"The US has understood that what is important is to reach the real issues, including the core issues at the heart of the conflict between us and the Palestinians," he said.
The visit, Mitchell’s first in nearly three months, comes after the United States admitted it had failed to secure a new Israeli settlement freeze that would have allowed the continuation of direct peace talks.
Mitchell was to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday evening, then on Tuesday head to the West Bank city of Ramallah for talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
On Wednesday, Abbas is due in Cairo to discuss the situation with diplomats from the Arab League.
Following the collapse of the negotiations, the US envoy was expected to ask both sides to outline their ideas for an eventual peace deal.
"The US is today going to ask both sides to hear their positions," opposition leader Tzipi Livni told Israel public radio from Washington, where she held talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"I have no doubts the Palestinians will be asked to put their positions on the table. Then we will see any difference between what they say in public and what they say in private," she said.
However, the Israeli daily Haaretz said most of the pressure would be on Israel.
"The brunt of the work will be in Israel because the Palestinians have already submitted their opening positions on all the core issues — borders, security, Jerusalem, refugees, water and the settlements," the paper said.
In a speech on Friday, Clinton pledged that despite the crisis, Washington would remain engaged, and she encouraged the two sides to address core issues through indirect talks.
Clinton’s speech came after weeks of fruitless efforts to convince Israel to impose a second freeze on West Bank settlement activity.
A previous 10-month freeze expired at the end of September, just weeks after Israel and the Palestinians embarked on direct peace talks.
Since then, the two sides have not met up, with Abbas refusing to talk while Israel continues to build on land the Palestinians want for a future state.
Washington offered Israel a package of incentives in exchange for a new three-month ban, but failed to win an additional moratorium.
Livni, who heads the centrist Kadima party, accused Netanyahu of being more interested in keeping his hardline coalition intact than making peace.
"Netanyahu chose this coalition, he chose it from this (rightwing) bloc that makes it hard to reach an agreement," Livni told the radio. "I have offered him a different option several times.
"It appears that when Netanyahu has to choose between his coalition and peace he chooses political survival," she said.
On Sunday, Netanyahu made no comment on the state of peace talks during a weekly cabinet meeting, but his office distanced itself from remarks made by Defence Minister Ehud Barak at a conference with Clinton on Friday.
Barak said Jerusalem would one day be divided between Israel and a Palestinian state, prompting an official from Netanyahu’s office to say the comments "were not coordinated with the prime minister."
"They represent the long-held views of the defence minister but don’t represent the views of the government as a whole," he said.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians have expressed doubt that a new round of shuttle diplomacy would achieve anything.
"The United States has once again proposed indirect talks with Israel, which means they don’t have anything to present," Palestinian negotiator Mohammad Estayeh told AFP on Sunday.
