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Progress in Palestine-Israeli Dialogue to Depend on Obama’s Policy

Politics Materials 6 November 2008 18:26 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, 6 November / Trend , corr.U.Sadikhova / The policy of the U.S. towards the Arab countries may be improved if the new elected President to the White House Barack Obama gives up the old foreign policy. 

"Obama must decide who he will be in the Middle East - successor or reformer? If Obama will rebuild the relations with Arab countries, the situation in the region will be changed completely," Jonathan Paris, an analyst of the U.S. Hudson Institute London based branch, told Trend via a telephone.

The Senator of the Illinois state and candidate from the Democratic Party Barack Obama won the presidential election on 4 November in the United States.

Coming to the presidential post, Obama will take a knotty tangle of the U.S. policy in the Arab region, particularly, strained relations with Syria and participation in the Palestinian-Israeli talks.

During the election campaign, Obama touched concrete tasks which he intends to carry out being the President of the U.S. - to improve the relations with Middle East countries and promised an active assistance to the Palestinian-Israeli talks.

The U.S. is one of the countries -chairman of the Middle East quartet, however, the League of Arab Countries (LAC), official Damascus and heads of the Palestinian administration voiced discontent on Washington's partiality to settle the conflict of Israel with the Arab countries.

The acting President Bush preferred to support Israel by ignoring the opinion of Arab countries.

At the talks between the Palestinian Autonomy and Israel the U.S. did not express any position recently. The last biggest step that the Bush administration took was the conference of the heads of Palestine and Israeli in Annapolis in October 2007, where the Middle East quartet worked out a document on truce to the end of 2009.

According to Akram Khuzam, a political analyst of the Aljazeera channel, the one thing that can help the next head of the White House is changes into the dialogue between the sides. However, radical changes mostly depend on the heads of Palestine and Israel.

At present, there is no formed government in Israel, but the election will be held in the Palestinian Autonomy in March 2009.

Moreover, Obama will face difficulties in his cooperation with Palestine, taken into account that the Autonomy is divided into two different political camps- FATAH and HAMAS, Paris believes.

"The difficulty is to analyze the foreign policy of Palestine rather than the foreign policy of the U.S., as political leaders in the autonomy react in different manner to the relations with Washington," Paris said.

Most likely, if the U.S. to improve the relations with the Palestinian administration, the HAMAS resistance movement will refuse from the cooperation with Washington, Paris believes.

Overcoming of the financial crisis will be one of the key tasks of the new administration of the White House.

"Obama first off all should understand the domestic problems, like the financial crisis, and then he starts to assist the tackling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," Khuzam, an independent Arabian analyst, told Trend from Beirut.

Unlike Bush's unbalanced policy related the Palestinian-Israeli dialogue, Obama will listen to the both sides, rather than to one, Israel, believes Anthony Sullivan, an expert of the U.S. Micchigan University.

"Bush's policy was mostly pro-Israeli, and the opinion of the Palestinians was not taken into consideration mainly. However, Obama wants to change the U.S. by refusing from the old policy of the country," Sullivan said to Trend .

Israel was not available for interviewing during preparation of the article.

The long waiting changes will take place with delivering of Obama's promises. This will be evident when Obama will head the White House beginning from January 2009 and forms a new administration.

"If the new U.S. President Obama will move away from Bush's policy, an evolution take place in the relations between the U.S. and Middle East," Sullivan said.

The correspondent can be contacted at: [email protected]

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