Activity Picks Up for Mideast Talks

U.s. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives at Downing Street , London for a meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, Thursday Jan. 18, 2007. Rice is in Europe to bring German and British leaders up to date on Middle East peacemaking efforts. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth) (Kirsty Wigglesworth - AP)

JERUSALEM -- After months of inaction, a flurry of diplomatic activity toward reviving Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking is under way. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning a summit with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, top Israeli officials are floating peace initiatives and the moderate Palestinian president says he is ready to discuss the outlines of a final settlement.

But with Hamas militants dominating the Palestinian parliament and Cabinet, and weak leadership on all sides, no one expects a deal any time soon.

The U.S. and Israel are trying to build on the "road map" peace plan by initiating confidence-building steps such as easing financial sanctions on the Palestinians and lifting West Bank roadblocks. They are also holding out the prospect of more wide-ranging concessions to help Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his power struggle against Hamas militants.

"We're at the pre-negotiation stage where the emphasis is on confidence-building measures," Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Monday. "But we're not talking about the substance."

The 2003 road map _ which outlines a staged plan for creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel _ never got off the ground because each side failed to meet its initial obligations. With the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in deep freeze since 2000, and the political rise of Hamas in the Palestinian territories, moderates on each side have found themselves with little choice but to start talking again.

In the past few weeks, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders held their first substantive meeting, and Israel followed up by transferring $100 million in frozen tax revenues to Abbas.

Rice has promised to lead a summit with Abbas and Olmert by mid-February, and is talking about reinvigorating U.S. involvement in Mideast peacemaking.

Meanwhile, the estranged leaders of the two most powerful Palestinian factions, Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, met over the weekend in Syria to try to put together a governing coalition that could negotiate with Israel. Though they did not reach agreement, they said they would continue the dialogue.

Early next month, the so-called quartet of Mideast peace brokers who launched the road map _ the U.S., the European Union, Russia and the U.N. _ also plan to meet to explore ways to re-energize peacemaking.

Sharp differences have emerged between the Israeli and Palestinian positions, however. The Palestinians oppose an Israeli proposal for a provisional Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, believing Israel could use it to usurp land while the sides negotiate endlessly over so-called final status issues.

It is precisely the big-picture issues _ final borders, the status of disputed Jerusalem and the Palestinians' demand to repatriate refugees and their descendants _ that have caused past peace talks to collapse.

"We are for negotiations on a final status agreement, even if there are (confidence-building) steps," said Nimr Hammad, a political adviser to Abbas. "But (those steps) must be tied to a final status agreement."