WASHINGTON — When President Obama reopened face-to-face talks between the Israelis and Palestinians last month, he pledged that his administration would hold their hands but warned, “The United States cannot impose an agreement, and we cannot want it more than the parties themselves.”
With the negotiations deadlocked over the issue of Jewish settlements, several veterans of Middle East peacemaking said Mr. Obama’s warning had come true — only weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed to sit down.
Not only is the Obama administration holding hands, they said, it is also handing out concessions to each side, in a bid to keep Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas at the table. The generosity of the American offers, and the reluctance of the Israelis or the Palestinians to accept them, have been telling.
On Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu’s senior cabinet ministers convened in Jerusalem, officials said, and did not even take up a package of security guarantees being offered by the United States in return for Israel’s extending a freeze on the construction of settlements in the West Bank by 60 days.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/world/middleeast/06diplo.html?th&emc=th
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