The challenges and opportunities that Israel faces today will undoubtedly lay the ground for its future coexistence both in the Middle East and as an ally to the West. With new US and Israeli leadership in office comes a renewed prospect to solve the old struggles, and to address once and for all the Palestinian question of statehood.
President Obama's May 18th meeting with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will introduce a new dimension to the long standing American-Israeli alliance.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been riddled with many intractable problems whose solutions have eluded both sides for more than 60 years. None, however, has been as politically and emotionally charged as the Palestinian right of return to the land they inhabited and lived in prior to the war of 1948.
The new Israeli government led by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu has raised many conflicting feelings among those concerned about the fate of the Arab-Israeli peace process. Will Netanyahu scuttle the little progress that was made under his predecessor Olmert, or will he engage the Palestinians anew?
With the changing political and demographic dynamic between Israel and the Palestinians and the advent of a new American administration, a new government in Israel and Palestine and a renewed push of the Arab Peace Initiative, an Israeli-Palestinian peace can be reached. The question now is will all these forces coalesce to drive for a peace agreement now which has eluded them for decades.
One of the most momentous declarations to come out of the
Arab world since Israel's inception in 1948 is the Arab Peace Initiative, launched in March 2002 in Beirut, Lebanon, and re-adopted by the Arab League in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in March 2007. It would be tragic to allow the Initiative to languish as it offers a solid promise for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.
The collapse of the coalition negotiations between Likud Leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Kadima's Tzipi Livni over Netanyahu's refusal to commit to the two-state solution may force him to form a narrow-based right-of-centre government. Such a government is likely to impede any progress or end up disintegrating under domestic and American pressure to make important concessions for the peace process.
The result of the Israeli elections on February 10th expressed clear sentiments of the public's weariness of the political process and deep cynicism about the campaigning leaders.
To make serious progress toward a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, George Mitchell must first work on restoring confidence in a peace process that years of havoc and destruction have all but destroyed.