WHEN PRESIDENT Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly Thursday, the centerpiece of his speech was the commitment he made to broker a two-state peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Much as he invoked the benefits of peace for Israelis and Palestinians, vital American interests are also at stake.
To his credit, Obama seems to have learned something that his last two predecessors acknowledged only late in their second terms: that although it is risky to invest presidential capital in Mideast peacemaking, declining to take that risk can have an exorbitant cost.
At the UN, Obama tactfully praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for words they have spoken recently in favor of peace. Obama went on to say that “these words must be followed by actions’’ — without precisely spelling out which actions he means. Obama was only laying out general principles when he said that “true security for the Jewish state requires an independent Palestine’’ — a premise that Israel accepted in entering the current negotiations — or that Palestinian rights “will be won only through peaceful means’’ — a proposition that Abbas has long defended.
If the talks are to succeed, Obama will eventually have to make clearer, firmer demands of both sides. In the near term, he needs to prevail on Netanyahu to come as close as he can to renewing the 10-month moratorium on settlement expansion that runs out this Sunday. Obama should also insist that neither party leave the negotiating table as the result of a violent provocation. Such provocations are bound to come.
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