Talks Falter on Middle East Peace

At WSJ, "U.S. Gambit on Mideast Peace Talks Falters" (via Google):

The Obama administration's campaign to forge a Middle East peace agreement appeared near collapse Tuesday, despite a U.S. move to negotiate the release of a convicted American spy in a last-gasp effort to win more concessions from Israel.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who was set to visit Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Wednesday, canceled his trip, the State Department said.

A formal breakdown in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, which the White House stressed hasn't occurred, would throw into turmoil President Barack Obama's second-term foreign-policy agenda, already reeling from rising tensions with Russia and an inability to stop the civil war in Syria.

Mr. Obama has said solving the Mideast conflict is one of three main international objectives of his second term. Republicans and Democrats on Tuesday criticized his administration's last-minute discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to offer up the spy, Jonathan Pollard, to persuade the Israelis to make good on previous promises to release prisoners. They called it a sign of a White House desperate for a major foreign-policy success.

"Releasing Pollard, in the context of the current peace-process travails, is bad policy," said Aaron David Miller, who served for some two decades as an adviser to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. "It reflects the weakness and desperation of the administration that is presiding over a peace process not yet ready for prime time."

Mr. Obama's allies on Capitol Hill questioned the move.

"I've followed this issue closely over the years. It's hard for me to see how releasing Jonathan Pollard would help jump-start Middle East peace talks," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) said. "It's one thing to consider releasing him after an agreement has been reached, but it's another to discuss setting him free before that has happened."

White House officials refused to declare the peace effort a failure on Tuesday. One senior administration official said the situation is "still fluid," and it is unclear how it will conclude.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Mr. Obama hasn't made a decision on whether to release Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Kerry has made a peace agreement the barometer through which to gauge his tenure by making dozens of trip to the Mideast over the past year and often holding meetings with Israeli and Arab officials by himself. Mr. Kerry has argued that ending the conflict would bring broader stability to the region and rob extremist groups like al Qaeda of an important recruiting tool.

Despite eight months of negotiations spearheaded by Mr. Kerry, diplomacy appeared to be unraveling late Tuesday after Mr. Abbas said he had signed papers formally applying to join 15 international organizations affiliated with the United Nations.

The U.S. had pressed Mr. Abbas during the negotiations not to move forward with such actions, which would have given the Palestinians more authority to press grievances. Washington hoped to forestall such a move through Israel's agreement to release political prisoners and to take other confidence-building steps as part of a larger process with a goal a formal peace agreement by April 29.

Mr. Netanyahu, though, had balked at following through with the prisoner release, infuriating the Palestinian side, and precipitating the U.S. offer of Mr. Pollard in a bid to get more Israeli cooperation.

All three sides have remained tight-lipped about how far the negotiations had progressed since their start in July, including the issue of the prisoner release...

Also at the Times of Israel, "Despite Palestinian unilateralism, talks will likely limp on," and "Pollard-for-prisoners deal said to be near completion."

And at the New York Times, "Abbas Takes Defiant Step, and Mideast Talks Falter."

Also at NY Daily News, "Kerry’s shambles: Mideast peace push turns to mush."