A failure for everyone

The Israeli prime minister has publicly expressed his satisfaction with the American decision, announced by Hillary Clinton, to consider terminated the direct peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, which began in September. Benjamin Netanyahu has gone back to repeating the litany- which serves him just as well for one situation as for its opposite- that the end of Barack Obama's pressures on his government will redound to the benefit of peace. The conflict in the Middle East, which has now been going on for 60 years, thus returns to the routine cycle of rebuilding and demolition, so far characteristic of the visits of US special envoys to the zone.

Netanyahu's refusal to put a stop to the illegal Jewish settlement of the occupied territories has turned out to carry more weight than President Obama's solemn statements, his repeated admonitions, and even the manna from Heaven recently announced by Washington in the form of 20 latest-generation US fighter-bombers, and the guarantee of a veto in the Security Council against any anti-Israeli resolution. All this in exchange for a mere three-month moratorium on the construction of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank territory and East Jerusalem.

Placed in a dilemma crucial to his political designs, the Israeli leader has yielded to his hawkish instincts, preferring to save his right-wing coalition with the religious extremists who keep him in power, at the same time pushing further into the background the American objective of bringing into the Israeli government the ex Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's moderates, who have been calling for a solution based on two states.

What we are looking at here is a failure for all parties concerned, and for the cause of peace. It is a failure for Obama, who had announced as a matter of principle that a treaty must be reached between these long-term enemies in the first years of his mandate; and who had rightly committed himself to the indispensable condition that Israel cease to build any further settlements in the occupied territories.

It is a failure, too, for the moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas- increasingly questioned among his people for his nonexistent achievements in the course of the past five years- which renders far more distant the prospect of a sovereign state.

And finally, it is a failure for Israel, in spite of Netanyahu's short-sighted satisfaction with his own rigid stance. Because, as far as a Palestinian state represents the best guarantee of Israel's future security, its systematic boycott by Israel further isolates the beleaguered Jewish state and casts deepening shadows of doubt on the continued unconditional support of its American friend.