"We can't want this more than the parties want it." Through two U.S. Administrations, this has been a constant refrain from U.S. officials discussing peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Yet wanting it more than the parties may be exactly where the Obama Administration finds itself Thursday after the Arab League endorsed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' preconditions for entering direct talks with the Israelis. Despite strenuous U.S. efforts to cajole him into unconditional direct talks, the Palestinian leader is insisting on written guarantees that Israel will halt all settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and that the basis of a peace agreement to be negotiated at such talks will be Israel's borders from before the 1967 war. Israel's Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom on Wednesday declared the Palestinian preconditions "impossible," and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that his government would collapse if he tried to extend his partial settlement freeze beyond its September 26 deadline.
Because Palestinian skepticism of Israel's intentions runs so deep, Abbas could not even count on an endorsement by his own Fatah movement to participate in indirect talks under the auspices of the Obama Administration; instead he had to secure a mandate from the Arab League earlier this year. Nothing that transpired in the indirect talks mediated by Sen. George Mitchell has given Abbas any confidence that direct talks will yield a credible agreement.
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