US/MIDEAST: Respite on the Road to Nowhere?

By Khody Akhavi | IPS News, June 20, 2008

WASHINGTON, - An informal truce between Israel and Hamas went into effect early Thursday morning, temporarily suspending a year of fighting that has left more than 600 Palestinians -- many of them civilians -- and 18 Israelis dead.

The guns fell silent at 6 a.m. amid scepticism that the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire will actually hold. The next 48 hours will determine whether both sides halt their cross-border fighting in exchange for a partial and gradual easing of Israel's economic blockade of Gaza.

While welcomed by Washington, the fragile truce marks yet another failure for the George W. Bush administration's "transformative diplomacy" policy in the Middle East. In the current climate, the Bush administration's tacit support for the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire underscores its need to salvage the withering Annapolis process.

"Anything that helps maintain security for Israeli citizens, that helps end the kind of violence that has been fairly constant along the border with Gaza is something that's positive," State Department spokesperson Tom Casey told reporters Thursday.

"I think the one caveat we have always said is that we don't think that any other track or any other negotiating path ought to be a substitute or a distraction from the primary set of discussions and negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians," he said, referring to U.S.-led peace talks that have yet to result in substantive progress.

The White House has publicly ruled out direct negotiations with Hamas until it renounces violence and accepts Israel's right to exist, but the group's ability to exploit the consequences of its isolation over the last year forced Washington to soften its stance. As in Lebanon, the move appears to have strengthened the political standing of a group that Washington still considers a terrorist organisation.

Beyond easing the immediate hardship to Gazans and stopping rocket fire into Israel, analysts here say the ceasefire will not lead to a substantive shift in peace talks.

"The ceasefire in Gaza will be a welcome respite, but a fundamental road to nowhere," said Aaron David Miller, an advisor to six U.S. secretaries of state, during a panel on Capitol Hill last Wednesday.

Continued . . .