Israeli and Palestinian Leaders Meet for Peace Talks

The Israeli and Palestinian visits to Washington, D.C. come amid recent tensions between the parties such as a violent encounter on an aid ship bound for Gaza and a shooting in the West Bank. The talks also include high-profile representatives from Jordan, Egypt and a group of international powers known as the “Quartet” (Russia, the U.S., the European Union and the United Nations).

The talks' first small success has been the leaders' agreement to meet again in the Middle East on Sept. 14-15 and every two weeks after that.

Many issues divide the two sides

	Violent protests are a regular occurrence in the disputed settlements of Gaza and the West Bank.

One of the biggest points of contention between the two sides has been a demand from the Palestinians that Israel stop building new settlements in the West Bank. The West Bank is a Palestinian territory bordering the Dead Sea.  Jewish settlers have constructed walled towns within the territory in a religious and political bid to extend Israel’s boundaries.

Other issues include: who will control the holy city of Jerusalem; the borders of a potential Palestinian state; the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in Israel after decades of exile; how the two sides will share lakes, rivers and other sources of water in the very dry region; and how the Palestinians will be able to control the militant organizations who do not think that Israel should be allowed to exist. 

A shooting in the West Bank city of Hebron on Aug. 31 involved gunmen from the Islamic militant group Hamas who killed four Israeli settlers and heightened tensions ahead of the peace talks. Hamas, which controls the other Palestinian territory called the Gaza Strip, was popularly elected by the Palestinian people to hold the most seats in their parliament in 2006; however, the U.S. considers Hamas a terrorist organization.

Hamas is not in Washington for the peace talks, instead, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the Fatah Party that controls the West Bank, is representing the Palestinians. The division between Hamas and Abbas complicates the negotiation process between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Other presidents have tried their hands at peace

	President Bill Clinton was one of many U.S. presidents who attempted to broker a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians.

Middle East peace talks have been held by every U.S. presidential administration for the past 20 years. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter helped broker the Camp David Accords, a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. As a result, Egypt became the first Arab state to recognize Israel as a country and Israel took its troops out of Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.

In the early 1990s, President George H.W. Bush held a series of talks between Israeli leaders and heads of state from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). However, the negotiations eventually fell flat and no firm agreements were reached.

President Bill Clinton helped oversee the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 in which Israel and the PLO acknowledged each others’ rights to exist. Clinton also invited the two parties to a highly anticipated summit at Camp David in 2000, but their leaders failed to reach a deal.

Talks are part of other U.S. actions in the region

	President Obama announced the end of the combat mission in Iraq from the Oval Office.

President Obama’s attempt to re-ignite peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians comes amid a series of policy changes in the Middle East designed to improve relations in the region and advance U.S. interests. On the eve of the new peace talks, President Obama announced the end of combat operations in Iraq, which began in March of 2003 when the U.S. invaded Baghdad and toppled dictator Saddam Hussein’s government.

Iraq’s neighbor to the north, Iran, has also been the target of U.S. diplomatic efforts in recent months. President Obama’s administration has been seeking increasingly strict sanctions--restrictions on goods and funds brought into a country, in an effort to get Iran’s leaders to abandon their nuclear program.

At the opening meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sounded cautious.

“This will not be easy,” Netanyahu said. “A true peace, a lasting peace, would be achieved only with mutual and painful concessions from both sides.”

“What's encouraging as well, and what's giving us confidence, is that the road is clear in front of us. We want to have a new era in our region, an era that brings peace, justice, security, and prosperity for all,” added Abbas.