Peace talks on hold as Obama admits failure

Sources close to the talks with Mr Mitchell reported that, in an attempt to gain some kind of progress, he proposed starting with low-level talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Mr Netanyahu’s office made it clear that following his decision, three-and-a-half months ago, to partially freeze building in the West Bank settlements, no more concessions would be forthcoming until they sat down to talks. Meanwhile, Mr Abbas reiterated that the Authority is standing by its demand that Israel first cease all settlement building, including in east Jerusalem.

The American administration’s position was underlined last weekend in an interview with President Barack Obama in Time magazine. Mr Obama blamed “the political environment, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies” on both sides of the conflict for the impasse and said that Mr Abbas has “Hamas looking over his shoulder and, I think, an environment generally within the Arab world that feels impatient with any process.”

Regarding Israel, he said that it had “after a lot of time showed a willingness to make some modifications in their policies” but that “they still found it very hard to move with any bold gestures”. He admitted that his administration “didn’t produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted, and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high.” He did not propose any new solutions and pledged to continue efforts.

A Likud MK said: “Bibi has gone out on a limb with the freeze decision. He won’t go any further for now, especially as it seems that Obama hasn’t got the political power to apply much pressure. Now that Obama has lost the Senate race in Massachusetts and will be focusing on the mid-term elections and his domestic policy, it doesn’t seem as if he will be quite so harsh with Israel as he was.”