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APN in Israel - Daily Dispatch: June 18

Includes "off-the-record" meetings with Israeli and American officials and Knesset members that pointed to intense negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians
Read Previous Dispatches: June 17, June 16

By Ori Nir, APN Spokesman

Our meetings in Jerusalem Tuesday, June 17, underscored the tremendous potential for progress toward calm, stability and even peace in Israel's relations with its adversaries.

As the Israeli news media reported that the government was on the verge of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in Gaza and on the verge of a prisoner swap with Lebanon's Hezbollah, members of APN's fact finding mission to Israel received encouraging accounts on incremental progress in peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and with Syria.

Details of those accounts were presented by Israeli and American officials in off-the-record briefings and therefore cannot be shared. We learned that negotiations toward a final-status agreement between Israeli and Palestinian officials are intense. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is meeting every other week with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is meeting as frequently as twice a week with chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmad Qurei. Israeli and Palestinian working groups are negotiating technical issues such as water and future security arrangements on an ongoing basis, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak is communicating with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad over short term security issues. In addition, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Israel that pushing for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is on the top of her agenda. Several of our interlocutors reported significant progress.

In addition, with the conclusion of the second negotiating round between Israeli and Syrian officials in Turkey, we were told that both sides are positively considering upgrading the talks from their current indirect nature to full-fledged direct talks. In addition, both Prime Minister Olmert and Syrian President Bashar Assad are considering a public meeting in Paris next month.

Despite the encouraging news, none of our interlocutors had illusions about the enormous challenges hindering real progress: Israeli and Palestinian leadership crises, an Israeli failure to deliver on its Roadmap commitments and utter mistrust on both sides in the political process are hindering real progress, we were told.

Meetings with Knesset members at Israel's parliament underscored the political stalemate caused by the uncertainty regarding the future of Olmert's coalition.

Our long day of marathon meetings with politicians, diplomats and policy experts ended with a sobering briefing by political scientist and pollster Tamar Hermann. Israelis are cynical and dismissive about the political process. They view all politics - including the current peacemaking efforts - as incredible ploys by corrupt politicians. In addition, Hermann said, the public is generally content when it comes to the economy and its quality of life and dose not attribute personal benefit to any breakthrough in Israel's relations with its neighboring adversaries. In political science, this phenomenon is known as the combination of a strong society and a weak state. When such situations occur, she said, the status-quo typically seems more favorable to the public.

On Wednesday June 18 we will meet with Palestinian politicians and policy experts in East Jerusalem and Ramallah.