US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began talks Tuesday with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, the first in a flurry of contacts with key players in the runup to new direct Israeli-Palestinian talks. A cloud immediately loomed over the talks as four Israelis were shot dead Tuesday near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kyriat Arba, a violent twist to Palestinian demands that Israel halt all settlement activity.
Both Clinton and Abbas, flanked by top aides, smiled for the cameras as they sat together on the eve of a high-profile White House dinner US President Barack Obama will have with Abbas, Netanyahu and other Middle East players. Neither gave public remarks about the hard work at hand as the chief US diplomat prepared to host the Palestinian and Israeli leaders on Thursday for the first direct peace talks since December 2008. Both Abbas and Netanyahu have both spoken of their willingness to compromise. But each bears a heavy burden of mistrust and suspicion spawned by 17 years of largely fruitless talks punctuated by bouts of bloodletting.
The meeting with Abbas was the first of Clinton's six scheduled meetings Tuesday. Then she will meet successively with the Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Aboul Gheit, former US president Jimmy Carter, and the representative for the Middle East quartet Tony Blair. The day will end with face-to-face talks with Netanyahu at 19:45 pm (2345 GMT), just ahead of Obama's Oval Office address to the nation to discuss the end of US combat operations in Iraq.
Top level talks in search of an elusive Middle East peace deal broke off in 2008 when Israel invaded the Palestinian Gaza Strip to halt militant rocket fire on its south. And there are few illusions that the new direct talks, after months of US-sponsored indirect negotiations, will overcome lingering Israeli-Palestinian divisions any time soon. The Palestinians also want a future state to be located across the whole territory seized by Israel in the Six-Day war in 1967.
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