As hope withers, Palestinian president heads to Washington

JERUSALEM-

With pessimism growing by the day over the future of Middle East peace talks, U.S. President Barack Obama will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Washington on Monday to try to break the stalemate.

The deadline for the negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, aimed at ending their entrenched conflict, expires next month and Washington is eager to persuade the two sides to prolong their discussions within a new framework.

But expectations of imminent progress are minimal.

After eight months of initial talks, and at least 10 trips to the region, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sounded unusually gloomy during a Congressional hearing on March 12, indicating that little progress had been made so far.

“The level of mistrust is as large as any level of mistrust I’ve ever seen,” said Kerry, a veteran of Middle East diplomacy. “Neither (side) believes the other is really serious. Neither believes that … the other is prepared to make some of the big choices that have to be made here.”

However, he said it was still possible to extend the talks.

Obama’s direct involvement is aimed at providing much needed additional impetus: he saw Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month, and is now meeting Abbas.

Israelis and Palestinians have been holding on-off negotiations for more than 20 years with the stated aim of sharing the Holy Land and creating an independent Palestine.

Through all that time, the main, unresolved issues have remained exactly the same – defining the borders and agreeing on security, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees displaced during the 1948 creation of Israel.

Obama told Netanyahu he would seek “difficult decisions” from Abbas in coming weeks and would push him behind closed doors as hard as he did the Israeli premier to help narrow the gap for a framework accord, a senior U.S. official said.

Obama will also tell Abbas that “we should not let this current window for peace close” and will make the case for the benefits of peace to the Palestinian people, the official said.

Although the terms of the mooted accord have not been published, Palestinians say early indications suggest they will be offered less than what former U.S. President Bill Clinton laid out in 2000 in the so-called Clinton Parameters.

The president’s aides have made clear that Obama wants the framework document to be seen as even-handed, despite the sense among many Palestinians that Washington is favoring Israel.