The Israelis and Palestinians are engaged in formal peace talks,again, and they are already about to face their first crisis. The Israeli moratorium on settlement building is set to expire on Sept. 26, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the moratorium will not be extended. The Palestinians have said that they will leave the talks if settlement activity starts again. For the most part, Palestinian-Israeli peace talks have been exercises in futility. Even when agreements are reached, both sides have done their best not to stick to them. The heavy international pressure, coming particularly from the US, for these talks to continue may, indeed, prove to be fruitful. Mahmoud Abbas has already indicated that there really is no alternative to continuing to participate in the talks. For his part, Netanyahu has refused to extend the settlement moratorium but has indicated that some type of new controls will be introduced once the moratorium expires. Both of these stances seem to be attempts to finesse the two parties around the settlement issue, a major thorn in the sides of both Israeli right-wingers and Palestinians, in general. To terminate the talks, at this point, would make both sides look foolish. Egypt has suggested a short term extension of the Israeli moratorium that would last an addition three or four months. Ideally, this would allow the two sides to work on drawing the borders of a Palestinian state so that future settlement building could take place on land that will definitely fall within the final borders of the Jewish state. Israel is loathe to accept suggestions from the Arab world, but this is one that it should think long and hard about. With the US strongly pushing Israel to participate in good faith in the current talks, it would greatly behoove Netanyahu to take the advice of the Egyptians and extend the moratorium for a few months. Given what is at stake, extending the moratorium for, at least, a few months can only work for the common good of everyone, not to mention that a few months mean nothing to the long term goals of the talks. In Abbas, Netanyahu appears to have the “partner for peace” that he has long said he has been lacking. Now, however, it is his turn to prove that he is a worthy partner in the same endeavor. __
