Arab capitals are considering their alternatives should the US hit a wall on the settlements freeze, Dina Ezzat reports When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met President Hosni Mubarak Wednesday in Cairo she was trying to garner support from Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world for a new US scheme for Middle East peace: resume peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis without the full freeze of illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. Directly and indirectly Clinton has been telling senior Arab interlocutors for the past few days that it looks unlikely that Washington would ultimately prove unable to get Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to honour the 2002 roadmap which calls for a full halt of all settlement activities. Clinton, as Arab diplomats say, is now suggesting that it is not in the interests of the Palestinians or the cause of peace to get stuck on the settlement issue and waste the commitment of US President Barack Obama to deliver a historic peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis in the next few years. What Clinton is now offering is the resumption of peace in return for a considerable containment of settlement activities and some US assurances. In Israel earlier this week the US secretary of state qualified as "unprecedented" the willingness of Netanyahu to slow down on current settlement construction and his intention to suspend the sequestration of further occupied Palestinian territories for new settlement projects. This, she had told a reluctant Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting in the capital of the United Arab Emirates on Saturday, could offer an opening for the initial resumption of peace talks. A Palestinian source from Ramallah told Al-Ahram Weekly that Abbas told Clinton that he "cannot do it" unless he is offered considerable guarantees that the ongoing construction of illegal settlements would not prejudge a possible peace agreement -- neither in terms of the scope of territories that Palestinians would get for the future state nor in terms of the possible temporary or permanent boundaries of the would-be Palestinian state. Abbas too, according to the same source, had made it mandatory to secure considerable "and declared Arab support" for this deal. Securing this support, the source suggested, should be primarily an American task. In Marrakech, along the lines of her participation in a political-developmental meeting, Clinton tried to secure the sympathy, if not the full support, of participating Arab interlocutors for the new US scheme. The top US diplomat had backtracked on the praise she declared for Netanyahu's plans to slow down and not to freeze settlements. Clinton, however, fell short of renewing the now rarely mentioned US commitment to seek a full freeze on settlements. "They told us that it looks like they cannot do it and that the time has come to think about the alternatives," an Egyptian peace process official told the Weekly. According to this source neither Egypt nor any other Arab capital will be willing to consider any alternative that does not include the direct intervention and guarantees from the US. Talking to the press following an Egyptian- Jordanian summit on Monday Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit confirmed that the US has not made sufficient progress in getting the Israeli government to stop settlements and that a future-looking approach should be considered. The top Egyptian diplomat did not exclude the possibility that "guarantees from the US and the international community" could offer an opening for the resumption of peace talks. "Guarantees from the UN Security Council could be considered," Abul-Gheit told reporters. However, he insisted it was Washington which should offer such guarantees to the Palestinians. Abul-Gheit said the decision as to whether to accept these guarantees should be made primarily by Palestinians but still acknowledged that Arabs should be briefed on the US offer. A limited Arab committee of foreign ministers that follows the file of Arab-Israeli peace talks is planning a meeting around the middle of the month to review the situation, an Arab League source told the Weekly. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa this week accused Israel of "sabotaging" the US attempt to revive peace talks. Moussa said that there are "clear fears" over the prospects of peace talks due to Israeli intransigence on the settlements issue. Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Joudah said in Cairo on Monday, following the Egyptian- Jordanian summit, that the window had not closed. "There are serious difficulties but the chance is still there" to build on the US commitment to deliver Arab-Israeli peace. Arab diplomats who spoke to the Weekly suggested that ultimately the Arabs will have to think of alternatives because otherwise it's "Israel's gain" to maintain the status quo.
