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The upcoming meeting between Palestinian and Israeli officials to be held in Washington this week under the auspices of the US should surely not be cause for celebration, especially for the Palestinians. This gathering - like all those previously held - would prove to be yet another occasion for the American administration to make just verbal and unrealistic promises of peace.
Recent comments by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are the strongest indication yet of her belief that there was still time to achieve peace before the end of the year. "The Israelis and Palestinians have their first serious peace process in seven years and they are discussing very sensitive and difficult issues," she said. Rice would be hosting peace talks between chief Palestinians negotiator Ahmad Qorie and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
But the real question at hand here - and one that definitely has to be asked - is where was the US effort to facilitate the peace process between the two sides over the past seven years?
If no serious negotiations have been carried out so far, it is mainly because the US administration has kept the issue on the backburner and has failed to forcefully pursue any final and just resolution. Had it flexed its power as a superpower, the peace process would have taken on a different dimension as well as direction.
It is questionable indeed as to what good the upcoming meeting between Palestinians and Israelis would achieve given that the current administration is living through its final days of power. If the US truly believed in the future of the peace process, it would have adopted the agenda then - that is seven years ago - and not now when it is too late for it to achieve anything viable.
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