JERUSALEM: The Israeli press on Sunday greeted the announcement of renewed direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks with a wave of skepticism born of the sides' repeated failures to reach agreement in the past. The mass-circulation Yediot Ahronot recalled that since a 1993 "Declaration of Principles" setting out the goals of a peace agreement, the two sides have been engaged in direct talks for all but the past 20 months without achieving those aims. "Many words have passed between the sides over the past 17 years," columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in an accompanying analysis. "And between the words there were not a few dead and wounded, and still there is no peace agreement." The invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to open a fresh round of talks next month in Washington was announced on Friday by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Newspapers are not published in Israel on Saturday because of the Jewish sabbath so Sunday saw the first print editions since the announcement. Following the 1993 declaration, the result of secret talks in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, there were a series of interim agreements giving the Palestinians limited autonomy pending a treaty on "final status" which was meant to set up an independent Palestinian state. Top-level final status talks were held in 2000 between then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the US presidential retreat at Camp David, ending without success. In 2003, the diplomatic quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations came up with the "road map" blueprint for peace, which was supposed to end the conflict by 2005. Only its opening phase has been implemented. In November 2007 the moribund peace process was relaunched amid fanfare in Annapolis, in the United States, but talks ground to a halt again when Israel launched a major offensive into the Gaza Strip in December 2008. "We've seen this movie before," Barnea continued. "And we've seen it again and again and again. It's hard to believe that this time it will have a happy ending." The free distribution daily Israel Hayom, which supports Netanyahu, also had reservations. "An Israeli victory, for the time being," was the title of its analysis by Zalman Shoval, a Netanyahu confidante and former Israeli ambassador to Washington. "The festive dinner at the White House will be impressive, he wrote. "One can only hope that the fate of the process that it will be launching will not be the same as that (started) at another ceremony on the White House lawn 17 years ago." The left-leaning Haaretz daily acknowledged the low expectations of the talks but argued that it could give Netanyahu a tactical advantage. "Expectations for the renewed negotiations are negligible. The small number of people actually interested in the peace process think Netanyahu is bluffing," Haaretz wrote. "Such public apathy is convenient for a politician who wants to turn his back on prior positions without incurring any condemnation, criticism or coalition turmoil. It's what Netanyahu needs to prepare the general Israeli public...for a change in his approach to managing the conflict."
