Opinion: Gaza Fiasco Should Spur Peace Negotiations

(May 31) -- If there was ever a moment for the Obama administration to redouble its efforts to bring about Middle East peace, this is it.

This morning's Israeli attack on ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip -- which killed at least nine people -- shows once again the high costs of this unresolved conflict, a bleeding wound that even on quiet days exacerbates religious and political hatreds and dooms Israelis and Arabs alike to a dark future.

It will take some time to sort out the facts of the flotilla fiasco. Israel says it reacted in self-defense to attacks on its commandos by pro-Palestinian activists; much of the rest of the world has already blamed Israel for staging the raid to begin with and forcefully stopping an attempt to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians under Israeli blockade in Gaza.

At the very least, Israel showed poor judgment and ham-handed tactics in going after ships in international waters carrying hundreds of human rights activists from nearly 50 nations. An independent investigation should take place as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the incident has provided new ammunition to Israel's most virulent enemies. Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said today that with the attack, "Israel switched on the countdown to its downfall," the hard-line Fars News agency reported.

The violence has severely harmed Israel's relations with Turkey, once Israel's premier Muslim partner. Relations were already at a low point since Israel assaulted Gaza in late 2008 to retaliate for rocket attacks on Israeli towns. The flotilla of six ships had set sail from Turkey, and the ship where the violence took place flew the Turkish flag. Many of the dead were members of a Turkish nongovernmental organization.

In response to the deaths,Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan withdrew Turkey's ambassador from Israel, accused Israel of "state terrorism" and called for emergency sessions of the U.N. Security Council and NATO. The Security Council was supposed to be focusing on a resolution against Iran's nuclear program -- a top U.S. and Israeli priority.

The timing from the perspective of the peace process is also unfortunate. The Obama administration had just begun so-called proximity talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians led by veteran peace negotiator and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. On May 24, Mitchell told a gathering in Washington organized by the U.S. Institute of Peace that he hoped those talks would lead soon to direct negotiations. He told me after his speech that he would set a deadline for those negotiations to reach a settlement, using the model that proved successful for him in brokering peace in Northern Ireland in 1998.

Now it is unclear whether even indirect negotiations will continue. In the aftermath of the flotilla deaths, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington scheduled for Tuesday. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was to follow Netanyahu to the Oval Office on June 9; it is not clear whether that meeting will take place.

Rather than allow the new violence to derail the process, the Obama administration must try harder to push the parties toward a settlement. To do otherwise is to ensure that there will be more tragedies.

The prolonged impasse has rising costs for the U.S., whose soldiers are fighting in two Muslim nations. Arabs, Muslims and many in the developing world see Israel as the oppressor and the U.S. as that oppressor's chief enabler. Only by helping to end the conflict can Washington begin to change that view.

Trying to negotiate peace between Israelis and Palestinians has always been a task of Sisyphean proportions. On May 31, the rock rolled down the hill again. Still, as Mitchell said in Washington on May 24, any conflict created by man can be resolved by man: "The tragedies of the past need not determine the opportunities of the future."


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