Editorials

Mideast progress

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-04 07:36

The US-brokered direct talks between Israel and Palestine started in Washington on Thursday. The world heaved a collective sigh of relief as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas resumed direct talks after a long gap of months and many conflicts and confrontations that claimed quite a few lives and caused untold suffering on both sides.

The meeting has been possible because of US-led international efforts over the past several months to break the stalemate in the Middle East peace process.

International observers, in general, doubt whether the ongoing talks would yield substantive results that could end the six-decade-old conflict between the two sides.

But at least they have made a start, and only peaceful negotiations, not conflicts and violence, can produce lasting and peaceful results.

The decades-long enmity between the Israelis and Palestinians has brought untold sufferings upon their people, and compromised regional peace and stability.

So, doubts over whether the talks will produce positive results are not baseless, especially because of the deep-rooted feud between the two sides and the fact that the Palestinian side has been apparently dragged to the negotiations table under US pressure,.

If Israel continues to cling on to its hard-line policies on issues that the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world strongly oppose, such as expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank and its embargo on Gaza, the Washington talks would not achieve any desirable result.

To ensure a better future for Israelis and Palestinians, as well as the people in the region at large, the two sides should respect each other's concerns and be ready to grant concessions. And the international community should continue to build a favorable momentum for the talks to reach an agreement that would lead to lasting peace in the region.

(China Daily 09/04/2010 page5)