Prisoners of Politics

Mahmoud Abbas left Washington a disappointed man. After a high-profile White House meeting with President George W. Bush, the Palestinian president told reporters that he was returning home with little to show for his White House visit. According to an aide to the Palestinian president, the meeting failed to address the key issues of a peace agreement, most importantly the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from new settlements in Palestinian territories and the redrawing of borders to pre-1967 lines.

This round of U.S.-led talks, which Bush launched last November, has been sluggish since its glitzy kickoff summit almost six months ago in Annapolis, Md. The initial overture was seen largely as a legacy move by the administration in its final year, but the lack of progress signals little hope for any brokered deal, big or small. To discuss the current state of the negotiations and what it will take to jump-start the process, NEWSWEEK's Daniel Stone spoke with Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at Washington's Woodrow Wilson Center and author of the new book "The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace." Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: What were some of Abbas's biggest complaints to the president about the slow-moving talks?
Aaron David Miller: There's definitely a lament about [the lack of] a firmer American stance on settlement activity. I'm sure he didn't directly complain to the president, but I'm sure there's a complaint on the issue of how serious the Americans are in their involvement, though Abbas's public comments seem to say that he still takes what the president said seriously and he believes that an agreement is possible by the end of the year.

Abbas, though, doesn't seem to have that much power in the process. He represents only about half of Palestinian territories.
If that.

How big a voice is he?
He's important for three reasons. One, he's elected by 62 percent of the Palestinian public in elections that were reasonably fair and free. Number two, because he was relatively close to [Yasir] Arafat, he does have some of that Palestinian Liberation Organization organizational legitimacy. And three, he has interacted extremely well with Israelis over the years. He's genuinely a good man, freed from the politics of violence and intimidation and much of the corruption that characterized other PLO leaders, although he's constantly criticized by Hamas and others.

Which must eat at his credibility …
Perhaps, but the Israelis have always looked toward him with a lot of hope. It's just that he's constrained. Both Abbas and [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert are not masters of their politics; they're prisoners of it.

In terms of these talks and any hope of an agreement, how big a role is America really playing?
This is not an American story now. The [American-orchestrated] process started at Annapolis has virtually disappeared. The roadmap of the process's implementation has disappeared, which was an American-written document. What remains are two very significant realities, but neither is being driven by the United States. One is a series of conversations that are being held by Abbas and Olmert on permanent status issues, like refugees and security. And secondly, there's an Egyptian effort to bring a greater measure of stability on the ground by pursuing the informal accommodation between Israel and Hamas. These two are where the story is.