Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in Washington have kicked off, in a race against time to avoid failure. Long explanations are unnecessary to provide justifications for this failure for those who expect it. There is an absence of a clear American vision of how to soften the Israeli stance. There is nothing new in the American role, except Washington's promise to the Palestinian Authority: enter negotiations and we will get involved when we can, to pressure Israel behind closed doors. We cannot do this openly, since experience has proven that this is not successful before negotiations begin. The attempt to change the Israeli positions before talks begin constrains our efforts. Confirming the efficacy of such a promise appears to be an exercise in futility, especially since the talks will last for a year, based on the American invitation that was issued. There are many reasons to expect failure. Among them is the drop-off in the American drive to rein in Israeli hardliners on the issues of settlements, Jerusalem, final-status issues, and releasing prisoners as a confidence-building measure. There is also the weakness of the Palestinian negotiating position, which is made weaker by domestic division, as well as Arab weakness and the absence of a minimum level of ability to pressure the international community in favor of a peace settlement. However, expecting these negotiations to fail does not prevent one from saying that one of their objectives, as American President Barack Obama said the other day, is to open a front against extremists. This does not mean that an agreement will be reached on establishing a Palestinian state. If the White House is sponsoring these talks while realizing beforehand the linkages among regional issues, then a huge question should be added to the many well-known reasons for expecting failure. This question is the following: Where does Iran stand vis-à-vis these talks, and can success be expected without involving Iran in the peace process to solve the Palestinian issue, after it has successfully obtained many regional bargaining chips over the last five years? If Washington has brought one of the extremists to the table, namely Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, then where is the other “extremist,” namely Iran? If the US-Arab vision involves removing the Palestinian issue from Iran's hand, through these negotiations, as a part of the international community's move to isolate Iran and strengthen the sanctions on that country, then the new peace process track will move the conflict in the region toward a situation that is open to all possibilities. Iran has supplied preliminary, overt responses to this peace process, through the attack in Hebron that killed four settlers, which was claimed by Hamas. In addition, the speaker of Iran's Parliament, Ali Larjani, attacked the negotiations, while the attack by the foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, covered Arab leaders who are participating in the talks, without equivocation. Finally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a spade a spade on al-Alam Television two days ago, when he called for the inclusion of the “true representatives of the Palestinian people to any meeting to discuss the Palestinian cause,” considering Hamas to be elected by the people. Finally, there was the attack by Hezbollah in Lebanon against the renewal of these negotiations, as they were linked to the repercussions of the armed clash between members of the party and those of an organization with which it is nominally allied, in the Borj Abi Haidar neighborhood of Beirut. Moreover, the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, was said to have welcomed the negotiations, although he never said any such thing. This was used to justify the linkage between the neighborhoods of Beirut to the process that was launched in Washington. On 24 August, Hariri merely said “we hope that they do not end up like previous rounds of talks, and that they adhere to the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.” He was implicitly warning that it will be difficult for any international party to sponsor other negotiations, and that if President Mahmud Abbas reaches a dead end, as Yasser Arafat did before him, then no side will be able to bring any Palestinian to the table with the Israelis. It is true that the Saudi Cabinet welcomed the negotiations last week, and it seems like the leadership of Hezbollah wanted to respond to Riyadh by proxy, by alleging that Hariri had said something that he did not. The stance by Iran and Hezbollah represents a profound anxiety about the process that has been launched in Washington. This anxiety is growing deeper in Lebanon: there is worry about the Saudi-Syrian understanding on regional issues, and the possibility of seeing Syria re-join talks with Israel, according to both international diplomatic circles and the American envoy, George Mitchell. This anxiety will grows if the Washington peace process track coincides with the White House's preparation of a new round of sanctions on Iran, at the beginning of next month. More importantly, the anxiety will be extremely dangerous if the anxious parties step up their linkage between what is taking place in Washington and the repercussions of what is happening in a neighborhood in Beirut, to justify the presence of weapons there.
