Lake: Israel Braces for Difficult Month
Eli Lake writes about the challenges that Israel will face in the next month:
As Israeli and Palestinian negotiators prepare for the first direct negotiations since 2008, the Jewish state is braced for one of the most difficult diplomatic months in its history.
One Israeli diplomat called next month "Black September," the same name Palestinians used to describe the bloody crackdown against them by Jordan's King Hussein in 1970, and also the name for the infamous Palestinian terrorist group that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
The diplomatic calendar from an Israeli perspective for September is filled with political land mines.
To start, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to release a report on the Memorial Day flotilla incident in which nine pro-Palestinian activists aboard a Turkish aid ship seeking to break a blockade of Gaza were killed in a battle with Israeli commandos. Activists in Lebanon have said they are trying to launch another flotilla to challenge the Gaza sea embargo in the coming weeks.
Then the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council is expected to issue a follow-up on a report issued in 2009 by Judge Richard Goldstone regarding the Gaza war in late 2008 and early 2009. This report is expected to challenge the credibility of Israel's investigation of its internal affairs, thus potentially opening up Israel to more formal lawsuits in the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
On top of all of this, Turkey — whose foreign minister said Israel's raid on the aid flotilla last spring was his country's Sept. 11 — takes its spot as the rotating chairman of the United Nations Security Council.
At the International Atomic Energy Agency later in September, Arab states are expected to press their case for Israel to publicly acknowledge its undeclared nuclear arsenal.
The diplomatic situation for Israel coincides with the renewal of the peace process that ended in December 2008 when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead against Hamas rocket positions in Gaza.
President Obama will host a dinner Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah.
The direct talks are scheduled to start in earnest on Thursday. Mr. Abbas has said he will break off the talks if Mr. Netanyahu does not renew a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank that is set to expire on Sept. 26.
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