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Russia eyes
Mideast role, but Israel not interested
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Russia is seeking a
greater role in Middle East peacemaking, as a recent visit to Moscow by the
Palestinian Authority president makes clear. But Israel isn't interested in
abandoning its main ally, the United States, as Mideast mediator
A series of Russian trial
balloons floated in the past two months to coax Israel and the United States
into an Annapolis reprise conference here in June appear to have drifted
astray.
Flush with oil cash and
eyeing the American diplomatic morass in the Middle East, Russia has sought to
assert itself further as a member of the Quartet charged with monitoring the
peace process.
But Russia’s overtures for
a new Mideast peace summit have resulted in little more than a duet between
Russia and the Palestinian Authority. Israel has shrugged off the idea of a
conference, and Mideast experts say the United States would have little, if
any, interest in Moscow-based talks that could undercut its role as the central
mediator in the conflict.
"It is hard for the
Israelis to say no to the United States," said Evgeny Satanovsky, the
president of the Middle East Institute in Moscow. "With Russia, it is no
problem at all to say no."
While the prospects for a
June conference in Moscow look dim, observers say Russia may have a key role to
play going forward as a more natural fit to open lines of dialogue with Arab
states.
Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas made the rounds in Moscow last week, sounding a
confident and hopeful note even as 17 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers
were killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip the day his plane touched down in
Russia.
"We have great hopes
the conference will move the peace process forward between Palestine and
Israel, and that it will lay the grounds for the broader peace process in the
entire Middle East, including Syria and Lebanon," Abbas told students at
the Moscow Institute for Foreign Relations, where he received an honorary
degree.
Abbas met with Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then with President Vladimir Putin at his
cottage outside Moscow last Friday, expressing confidence after each visit that
the next milepost on the road to Middle East was planted in Moscow.
Then Abbas went to
Washington this week to meet with President Bush and U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice.
Shortly after Abbas left
Russia, several media outlets downplayed his visit. A commentator for the
state-owned RIA-Novosti news agency called the results of the Abbas visit
unimpressive and said the conference likely would be postponed.
Israel has not received
any official invitation to a summit in Moscow and would have to review the
agenda for such a conference before it could decide to attend, a spokesman for
the Israeli Embassy in Moscow told JTA.
"It's no secret that
Israel prefers bilateral negotiations," the spokesman said, adding a
Moscow conference could be good or bad for Israel, depending on the
discussions.
The possibility of a
Moscow conference arose in the run-up to talks held last November in Annapolis,
Md., as the United States worked to bring Syria on board. In an effort to
sweeten the pot, Moscow held out the option of a second conference in Russia
that could include the Golan Heights on the agenda.
Syria, which has demanded
a discussion on the Golan as a requirement for its participation, sent a deputy
foreign minister to Annapolis.
Lavrov on a tour of the
Middle East last month visited Syria, Israel and the Palestinian Authority to
stump for the conference. He criticized settlements in the West Bank and called
the Israeli government's blockade of the Gaza Strip "unacceptable."
Since the Annapolis talks,
Russia largely has been left in the dark on the state of negotiations between
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas, the Russian daily Kommersant
reported. The paper noted the Russian administration's frustration that it has
funneled more than $10 million in aid to the Palestinians and still has little
say in the peace process.
Joshua Landis, the
director of the Center for Peace Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the
author of a newsletter on Syria, said the initial suggestion of a conference
and subsequent lobbying effort provided Moscow with a chance to grab headlines
and "flirt" with the idea.
Russia brings a unique set
of connections and qualifications to the negotiating table, especially with
Arab states, Landis said, based on its willingness to engage the leaders of
Hamas and Hezbollah or conduct bilateral talks with Syria.
But he said Russia has a
long way to go before it can act as a necessary counter-balance to U.S.
influence in the region, despite America's baggage with the Iraq war, Iranian
brinksmanship and its acknowledgment of Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist
groups.
"They want to show
that they are not in the U.S. camp, that they are neutral or on the side of the
Arabs," Landis said. "In that sense, Russia is making some hay of
this. It's in Russia's interest to float this balloon more than it is to
actually have the conference."
By placing its toe in the
water this year, Russia has signaled that it sees an opening that hasn't
existed since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
For decades the Soviet
Union, hoping to spread its ideological and economic interests, was mired in
the wrong fights in the Middle East, backing the wrong leader against the
superior force of Israel.
"It all turned out
badly for the Soviet Union," Landis said.
After the collapse, there
was little room for Russia at the negotiating table. Although Moscow kept open
avenues with Arab states, those states were increasingly wary of Russia's
ability to help them.
Steven Cook, a Middle East
analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, said that with a resurgent
Russia and an increasingly bogged-down United States, the dynamic may change
over the next five to 10 years.
"It's kind of
oil-based, crony capitalist, semi-authoritarian political system actually
meshes quite nicely with those in the Arab world," Cook said. "After
50 years of American dominance, the Arabs may find it convenient, although
nobody thinks that anyone is going to supplant the United States. But the Arabs
may find it convenient to play Moscow off of Washington."
In the short term, Cook
said, Russia is looking for headlines and a further justification of its aid
investment in the Palestinian territories. But in the years to come, Moscow may
be looking for more
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