AlJazeera.net (Qatar) : "New hope for Middle East peace?" par Rob Reynolds

New hope for Middle East peace?  

By Rob Reynolds, senior Washington correspondent


Barack Obama will try to re-invigorate his push for a Middle East peace settlement as he hosts talks with Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, at the White House.

Before Tuesday's meeting with the US president, Mubarak held discussions with Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and other senior officials on Monday.

Mubarak was supposed to have visited Washington earlier this year but postponed the trip because of the death of his grandson.

According to Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian foreign minister, Mubarak plans to press Obama to publicly present his peace plan soon, without waiting until Israel changes its position on the building of illegal settlements.

Aboul Gheit told Cairo's state-run daily newspaper Al Ahram that Egypt maintains Israel should freeze all settlement expansion immediately and pull back its army from positions in the West Bank.

He indicated that Mubarak would resist Obama's calls for more meaningful Arab recognition of Israel as a confidence-building measure, saying Israel is the one that must do much more to establish the trust of its peace plan partners and neighbours.

Lost momentum

However, there is no question that the US president's early push towards a peace settlement has lost momentum.

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has dug his heels in over the settlements issue, insisting settlers must be allowed to continue building in order to make room for so-called "natural growth".

Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, has said that language about "resistance" emerging from the Fatah conference earlier this month had "buried" peace prospects for years to come.

And the Palestinians themselves remain divided between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank.

Egypt is trying to broker unity talks between the factions.

Hamas itself last week had to deal with an ultra-hardline armed faction which rebelled in Gaza.

It crushed the challengers, showing no hesitation about using massive and lethal force against anyone who would question its legitimacy or religious credentials.

Looming above all of this is Iran, the simmering dispute over its nuclear intentions, and the very real possibility that Israel could strike it at some point in the near future.

Meanwhile, Obama's energies are almost completely consumed by........................
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http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/08/2009817.................





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