Violence attempts loom over possible Palestinian-Israeli talks
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There is a growing sense of anticipation in the Middle East as Palestinians and Israelis are about to resume negotiations after a hiatus of over a year.
U.S. special envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel on Saturday and immediately met Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Sunday was set aside for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before Mitchell travels to Ramallah to meet Palestinian leaders.
At some point during the week, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, set to arrive in the region on Monday, is expected to announce a fresh round of talks is getting underway.
The parley is almost definitely going to be indirect at first because of differences over Israel's refusal to implement a full construction freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Both Palestinians and Israelis will tighten security over the upcoming weeks for fear that extremists will attempt to derail the talks. Evidence from the past suggests legitimate foundation for these concerns.
Record of violence
Both Palestinian extremists and Israeli army have ever played a role in the breakdown of previous talks.
Early last year, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) announced it was quitting negotiations with the government of then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a decision as the direct result of an Israeli military operation in the besieged Gaza Strip.
"There've been more than a few attempts in the Palestinian- Israeli arena to derail diplomatic processes over and over," said Eitan Alimi of the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He maintains that there are two reasons why violence manifests itself in the face of potential peace: the first is a refusal to recognize the rights of the other party; the second is internal divisions on one side or the other.
The efforts to scupper peace talks date back to the late 1980s, even before the creation of the PNA when there was a lack of recognition, he said.
Since then much of the violence has been the result of a clear schism in Palestinian politics. The Fatah movement, which dominates the PNA, is largely supportive of peace talks, while the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas and Islamic Jihad remain fiercely opposed to the idea.
This was perhaps best brought into sharp relief in the run-up to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 -- the process that brought the PNA into existence. "It's not too hard to remember the series of appalling terror attacks carried out by Hamas and the Jihad in order to wreck Oslo," said Alimi.
