Washington, March 17: A crisis in US-Israeli relations over new illegal Jewish settlement construction will dominate a meeting of the Quartet negotiating group in Moscow this week and could see more pressure applied to Israel.
“It will be a completely different meeting than the one that was planned,” said Michelle Dunne, a Middle East analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The meeting comes amid a serious diplomatic spat between Israel and Washington, after Israel announced the construction of 1,600 new illegal Jewish settler units in Israeli-occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem as US Vice President Biden visited the region.
Biden was in town to promote indirect “proximity” peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian, but the Israeli announcement scuppered his plans and has changed the agenda for this Thursday’s Quartet meeting, Dunne said.
“The idea was to have the proximity talks going and the Quartet would bless the talks, set out some expectations,” she said. “Now we have this diplomatic train wreck of the Biden visit.”
The Israeli announcement led the Palestinians to call for a halt to peace talks and precipitated the worst crisis in US-Israeli relations in years, with senior US officials calling the announcement’s timing an “insult” and warning the construction plans jeopardized the peace process.
Last week, the group condemned the new construction plans, following the Obama administration’s example and joining criticism already leveled by the Arab League and the European Union.
If the Quartet issues a statement at the end of its meeting making specific demands of the Israeli government, that will be a clear indication that the United States has no desire to step back from its confrontation with hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, Dunne said.
Asked to elaborate on what agenda she would be taking to the Moscow Quartet meeting, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered only that the United States remained “committed to the resumption of negotiations between the parties.”
“We are very committed to achieving the two-state outcome that is the goal,” she said. “We’ll see what the next days hold.”
An administration official said that Clinton might talk by telephone with Netanyahu before leaving for the Russian capital on Wednesday.
European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton is due to visit the Gaza Strip before the Moscow talks, while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will visit the territory afterwards to assess the humanitarian situation there.
“Catherine Ashton will just have come from the region. She’s asked the Israelis even to let her go to Gaza. It will be interesting to see to what extent she raises that issue,” said Dunne.
Ashton, the top EU diplomat, on Monday said Israel had “endangered and undermined the tentative agreement to begin proximity talks” by announcing new settlement construction.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday asked visiting Ashton to press Israel to halt illegal settlement activity, his chief negotiator said.
“President Abbas met with Lady Ashton in his office in Ramallah and gave her a letter demanding that the European Union intervene to pressure Israel to completely halt settlements in the Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem,” Saeb Erakat said after the meeting.
He said the letter included maps and other documents about settlement construction carried out since September 2009.
—Agencies