MOSCOW, May 28 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. and Palestinian leaders' talks on Thursday afternoon on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process will aim to give the impression of progress but will yield no results, a leading Mideast analyst said.
Barack Obama will meet Mahmoud Abbas at the White House for discussions likely to focus on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and the Palestinian leader's proposals for a broader peace deal involving Arab states.
The peace process, in particular the U.S. negotiating role, has "become a series of theatrical performances which are intended to convey some sort of diplomatic movement when in fact nothing is about to move, unless the US places some pressure on the Israeli government," Dr. Laleh Khalili of London's School of Oriental and African Studies told RIA Novosti.
She added that with the range of problems currently facing the U.S. leader, he will be unwilling to pressure Israel.
Palestinian diplomats earlier said Abbas would be promoting a re-vamped version of a 2002 Saudi peace plan calling for the exchange of Arab lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.
On the prospects of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, Khalili said the Palestinians would only consider them successful if "radical resolutions" were reached, which is "not going to happen through Abu Mazen [Abbas] meeting Obama."
Palestinians want "at the very minimum a return of Israel to the 1949 armistice line, a fully sovereign state in West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem with full and free access to one another and to their own borders, airspace and territorial waters, and the return of the refugees," she said.
Obama urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week to end the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Netanyahu has refused to commit Israel to ending the expansion of outposts, and has shown a greater reluctance to consider a 'two-state solution' than his predecessor, Ehud Olmert.
On the new Israeli leader's likely impact on the peace process, she said Netanyahu's right-wing stance is unlikely to be more damaging than that of Olmert, who "launched two wars against Lebanon and in Gaza."
