Muddle East

This week, the Knesset is scheduled to hold its first vote on a dissolution bill that would precipitate early elections later this year if it passes two further rounds of voting.  The catalyst has been the scandals enveloping Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.  Amid all the manoeuvring and shadow boxing among both his opponents and his 'allies in the ruling coalition, commentators routinely aver that his downfall would probably prevent the US-mediated Israeli-Palestinian 'peace talks' from achieving their target of a substantive agreement by year-end.

However, these talks were never likely to make progress, have not done so, and are now of course even less likely to.  Washington's regional allies are now behaving as if the process were dead, especially the doomed attempt to squeeze and marginalise Hamas-ruled Gaza. 

Envoys from Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction are seeking to promote reconciliation with Hamas, a year after the movement seized control of Gaza.  Arab diplomatic efforts are focused on convening a meeting of all the Palestinian factions in Cairo before the end of this month.  Israel and Hamas are embarking on a six-month Gaza ceasefire, brokered by Egypt, which if implemented, will gradually relax the economic blockade of Gaza.  Israel is also reported to be making progress in indirect peace talks with regional pariah Syria mediated by Turkey, and in discussion with another US bogey, Hizbollah, on a prisoner exchange.  All this seems to mark a return to pragmatism by Washington's Israeli and Palestinian allies.