William Hague’s call to revive Middle East peace process faces obduracy

Foreign secretary’s intervention in the middle of Egypt unrest unlikely to move Israel – or impress US William Hague has said that Egypt’s turmoil is good reason to inject some life into the Middle East peace process rather than leave it in the hospice for lost causes, where it now languishes. Unfortunately, the foreign secretary is appealing against every instinct in the Israeli body politic, which is to dig in deeper in the face of uncertainty on its southern flank. At the Munich security conference, the Israeli national security advisor, Uzi Arad, warned an audience of western officials and diplomats that the Muslim Brotherhood was better organised than Egypt’s secular opposition groups and was, therefore, likely to come out on top in a post-Mubarak world. The “belligerent” language that Hague is talking about refers to Binyamin Netanyahu’s vow to “reinforce the might of the state of Israel”, which means reorienting the Israeli Defence Force so that it once again faces south after three decades of peace. The regional uncertainty is also being used by the Netanyahu government as a reason not to give ground on the substantial issues blocking progress on peace with the Palestinians, such as the continuing growth of West Bank settlements. However, Israel showed little inclination to stop building even when the region was relatively tranquil. It abandoned its moratorium on settlement-building last September, when there was no sign of any challenge to Hosni Murabak’s reign. Writing in Foreign Policy earlier this month, Daniel Levy, of the New America Foundation, described the president as a ” key facilitator of Israel’s agenda in the region – partly due to his support for the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty but primarily centred around his maintenance of a ‘go-nowhere’ peace process that helps shield Israel from international criticism while giving Egypt the appearance of being a useful ally to the US.” Mubarak, Levy argued, also made himself useful by helping to isolate Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and “playing host to the occasional peace gala in order to maintain the fiction that all of this ‘peace processing’ might lead somewhere”. The truth was that it was going nowhere since the end of the moratorium on settlements and Washington’s acquiescence in that Israeli move. It is Hague’s expression of frustration with the Obama administration, however diplomatically phrased, that is perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of his interviews on Wednesday. It reflects a widespread belief in Europe that Washington has dropped the ball on the peace process. By default, leadership has switched to the Quartet (the EU, UN, US and Russia), which will meet Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in the next few weeks. The trouble is that, in Israeli eyes, the Quartet dilutes US pressure rather than amplifies it. The foreign secretary’s intervention is unlikely to change any of this, but it comes at a time when he is personally under attack at home for what his critics say is a lack of clarity in the coalition’s foreign policy. The headline writers are giving in to the inevitable temptation of rhyming Hague with vague. A recent column in the Times complained: “We should not exaggerate the importance of the British intervention but our view would matter, if only we had one.” They might not go down well in Tel Aviv and Washington, but Hague’s remarks do at least represent a distinct British view. Middle East peace talks Egypt Middle East William Hague Israel Palestinian territories Obama administration US politics Binyamin Netanyahu Hosni Mubarak Hamas United States Julian Borger guardian.co.uk

Posted by on February 9, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry