George Mitchell, the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, has learned once more that it takes two to tango.
A year after President Barack Obama tasked him with the mission of reviving Is rael's on-again, off-again peace pro cess with the Palestinian Authority, which collapsed at the end of 2008,
Mitchell appears to have reached a dead end, like virtually all his predecessors since the 1967 Six Day War.
Obama has reason to be con cern ed. Two weeks ago, he told Time magazine he might have rais ed expectations too high and ?overestimated' his administration's abil ity to forge meaningful
diplomatic progress. ?I'll be honest with you,? he said. ?This is just really hard. Even for a guy like George Mit chell.?
Obama attributed the impasse to three interrelated factors: the Palestinian Authority's fear that concessions to Israel may deepen its increasingly bitter struggle with its rival, Hamas, which
calls for the destruction of Is rael; Israel's difficulty in making ?bold gestures' to the Palestinians, and the Arab world's impatience with the stagnation and its refusal to normalize relations
with Israel unless it ends its ?illegal occupation' of the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
If Mitchell fails, it will be a case of deja vu all over again.
A decade ago, following the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising, the outgoing president of the United Sta tes, Bill Clinton, asked Mitchell to study the upsurge of violence and make
recommendations for tamping it down. Mitchell, delivering a report to Clin ton's successor, George W. Bush, called for a truce and confidence-building measures so that talks between Israel and
the Palestinians could be restarted. As well, he urged the Pa lestinian Authority to crack down on terrorism and Israel to cease all settlement activity in the territories.
Though Mitchell's recommendations were endorsed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, they were not implemented. In fact, they were folded into the 2003 ?road map' peace plan, which eventually
withered on the vine. The then-president of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Ara fat, would not or could not rein in Palestinian attacks, while Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sha ron, rejected
the very concept of a settlement freeze.
Despite his failure to reconcile the clashing visions of Israelis and Palestinians, Mitchell accepted Oba ma's appointment as spe cial representative to the Mideast. Obama had high hopes that
Mitchell ? a skilled negotiator of Irish and Leb anese Maronite descent who brokered the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ire land and who served as U.S. Senate majority leader' might
succeed in untangling Israel's century-long, intractable conflict with the Palestinians.
Last January, in what was described as a ?listening tour,? Mitchell set out for the Mid dle East, saying his objective was to achieve a two-state solution within the framework of stability
and security. On April 15, two weeks after Benjamin Ne tanyahu's right-of-centre government was sworn in, Mitchell embarked on his inaugural working trip to Israel and the Palestinian
territories, repeating the man tra that the best way to resolve the conflict was through the creation of an independent Palestinian state co existing with Israel.
Since then, Mitchell has become a regular visitor to Jeru salem and Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority.
On his last visit to the region late last month, he conferred with, among others, Netanyahu and Pres i dent Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, his main interlocutors.
Mitchell failed to lure Abbas back to the ne gotiating table, with Abbas saying he would not resume talks until Israel agreed to a full settlement freeze in the West Bank and east ern Jerusalem.
Israel announced a partial 10-month freeze last November, infuriating Jew ish settlers. The United States praised it as a positive step forward, but the Palestinians dismissed it as a
disingenuous and half-ba ked ploy designed to appease Obama.
Nor did Mitchell make any substantial head way with'Netanyahu, notwithstanding his support for an immediate resumption of negotiations without conditions. Within hours of conferring with
Mitchell, he reaffirmed that Israel would retain the Gush Etzion bloc and two of the largest settlements in the West Bank, Maale Adumim and Ariel.
In the face of Mitchell's latest setback, Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, warned last week that the unresolved Palestinian prob lem poses a greater threat to Israel than a nu
clear-armed Iran, a view not shared by Netanyahu.
Though Barak admitted that the peace process is frozen, he predicted that negotiations would resume by March.
Barak's optimism seems like an exercise in wishful thinking, given the atmosphere of mutual suspicion and mistrust. Yet Barak may be on to something. Before leaving Israel on Jan. 25, Mitchell
submitted a proposal to Abbas suggesting that talks should focus on confidence-building mea sures to improve conditions in the West Bank for Palestinians rather than on volatile core issues such
as the final borders of a fu ture Palestinian state and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
If the Palestinians embrace Mitchell's plan, Israel could remove more roadblocks in the West Bank, release additional Pa lestinian prisoners, reopen Orient House in East Jeru salem and ex pand
Area A in the West Bank, where the Pa lestinians possess both civil and security control.
Even if his proposal is acceptable to Abbas, Mit chell will still be a long way off from achieving his goal of a two-state solution, since Israel and the Palestinian Authority are so far apart on
both minor and major issues. For the past few months, Abbas has consistently said he will not renew talks un less Israel stops all construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, recognizes
the 1967 bor ders of a Palestinian state and agrees to resume negotiations where they left off in December 2008.
Abbas and Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, met regularly to thrash out their differences. On the eve of his resignation, stemming from a widening corruption scandal, Olmert proposed a
far-reaching territorial swap.
In exchange for annexing 6.3 per cent of the West Bank ? home to 75 per cent of Jew ish settlers ? Israel would transfer 5.8 per cent of its pre-1967 territory to the Palestinians. Although
Olmert's offer was unprecedented in its generosity, Abbas did not re spond, correctly assuming that Olmert's days as premier were numbered.
Netanyahu, given his track record and his reliance on coalition partners that staunchly oppose real territorial compromise, is not li kely to be as forthcoming as Olmert.
Since the beginning of 2010, while repeatedly urging Abbas to negotiate with him and ?stop wasting time,? he has set down several markers that the Palestinians have roundly denounced.
Fearing rocket attacks from the West Bank, like those emanating from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, Netanyahu has said that Israel must maintain a permanent presence in the Jordan Valley, along the
eastern border of a future Palestinian state.
In addition, he has declared that Israel will never cede control of east Jerusalem, where the Palestinians wish to establish their capital, or retreat to the 1967 armistice lines. Netan yahu,
too, has warned that the settlement mo ratorium is a ?one time, temporary' move, while his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has said that Israel has emptied its ?ar senal of gestures,?
including the reduction of roadblocks, to the Palestinians.
In spite of the formidable obstacles that lie ominously ahead, the United States is determined to push ahead, warning that delay is in no one's interest and only makes things worse. Clearly,
Mitchell has an immense job on his hands.
Call it mission impossible.
