After the Israeli Elections, The Need for a Peace Process

In the aftermath of this week's mixed results for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there are, from an Israeli perspective, five reasons for trying to maintain the status quo in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

• First, a large rightist, religious and secular, pro–status quo constituency supports such a policy.
• Second, there is a fear of creating dissent and division by appearing to make any type of concession, including moving toward reopening negotiations.
• Third, the seeming absence of any serious threat to the status quo supports a do-nothing approach.
• Fourth, the Arab states are busy with internal affairs driven by the recent political upheavals, and this focus has been at the expense of the Palestinian issue. Evidence of this can be seen in the lack of serious responses to the Palestinian leadership’s repeated calls for financial assistance to head off the ongoing human and economic disasters resulting from the economic strangulation of the Palestinian territories.
• Fifth, the Palestinians are absorbed in their own internal politics and divisions, with Hamas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority still unable to reconcile their differences and develop a common policy and strategy for action.