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"Netanyahu has produced nothing short of a masterful performance…He's outmaneuvered us," Miller admitted. |
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has lost face after backtracking on its demands for a full freeze of Jewish settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories and needs a new approach to revive the staled peace talks, analysts agree.
"[Israeli Premier Benjamin] Netanyahu has produced nothing short of a masterful performance," Aaron David Miller, an analyst with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, November 3.
"He's outmaneuvered us. He's ingratiated himself to the American Jewish community and the administration."
Obama has personally and repeatedly called for a total freeze of settlement construction to help re-launch the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Hawkish Netanyahu snubbed the calls and defiantly insisted for months he would never order a construction freeze.
Eventually, the Obama administration caved in and seems to have abandoned its earlier stance on liking the settlement freeze with the talks re-launch.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week asserted that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should resume peace talks describing demands for a settlement freeze in advance as an unaccepted "pre-condition".
"He's put Abbas on the defensive and he's said 'no' to the great power, without cost and without consequences," Miller said about Netanyahu.
The international community considers all Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land illegal.
Under the internationally-backed roadmap, Israel must freeze all settlement activities and vacate all settlements constructed after March 2001.
There are more than 164 Jewish settlements in the West Bank, eating up more than 40 percent of the occupied territory.
New Approach
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| Clinton tried to reassure the Arab countries over the US position on the Israeli settlement building. |
Analysts believe the Obama administration needs a fresh approach to restart the Middle East peace talks.
"They need to do some fundamental rethinking about what their overall objective is and how they are going to achieve it," said Miller, who advised six secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations.
Amjad Atallah, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian Authority, agrees.
He noted that the US was pursuing "a business-as-usual negotiating strategy" that can only ultimately lead to a worsening situation and even violence.
"They thought once it got into permanent status negotiations, things would go relatively quickly," he told AFP.
"What they didn't count on was the Israeli government's intransigence."
Atallah said the American U-turn on the settlement issue has only weakened Abbas further and made him more reluctant than ever to resume talks with Israel.
"They (Palestinians) argue that if the US was not prepared to back up what it said on settlements, why would it be prepared to back up what it might say on borders?"
The American U-turn on the settlement issues has sparked Arab anger.
"I am telling you that all of us, including Saudi Arabia, including Egypt, are deeply disappointed," Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said ahead of a meeting with Clinton Monday.
America's top diplomat tried to reassure Arab countries.
"The Obama administration's position on settlements is clear and unequivocal," she told a meeting with Arab foreign ministers.
"It has not changed. The US does not accept the legitimacy of continuing Israeli settlements."
Atallah said the US needs to devise a diplomatic strategy that matches the "high-minded principled recognition" that the Arab-Israeli conflict threatens its
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