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Kurtzer: Next U.S. President Must Give Priority to Arab-Israeli Talks

Council on Foreign Relations

Interviewee: Daniel C. Kurtzer, S. Daniel Abraham Visiting Professor in Middle East Policy Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

April 16, 2008

Daniel C. Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel, led a recent study group on negotiating Arab-Israeli peace sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace. He says that it is doubtful President Bush’s goal of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by the end of this year will occur, but the next U.S. president must make these negotiations a priority. He also suggests initiating discussions with Syria and Iran.

Is there any real possibility for the Bush administration’s latest efforts, launched at the Annapolis conference last November, to get a two-state solution by the end of the year?

The president set a very high goal here, and without a commensurate level of investment of time and effort by the United States, there’s no way that the Annapolis process will succeed. There are two things that were supposed to emerge from Annapolis. Number one was an agreement, either in principle or even in detail, on the substantive issues in dispute between the Palestinians and Israel. And second was a major change in behavior, consistent with the road map agreement of 2003, where Israel would stop settlement activity and pull down outposts and increase mobility by pulling down roadblocks and check points. On the Palestinian side, they were supposed to go after and uproot the terrorist infrastructure and really get serious about building the infrastructure of a Palestinian state. But not enough is happening on either track. And the United Stateshas not acted enough in dealing with what’s happening.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.