PBS correspondent Jeffrey Brown talks to Washington Institute for Near East Policy senior fellow David Makovsky and News America Foundation Middle East Task Force co-director Amjad Atallah about the recent US-Israeli rift and what it means for future Israeli-Palestinian talks.  The full transcript can be found here.

Makovsky comments that the US-Israel dispute from last week is reaching a "de-escalation phase," and Atallah agrees that neither the US nor Israel benefit from an ongoing row.  But Atallah says softening language does not address "underlying disputes." 

Makovsky and Atallah fail to agree on how accountable to hold Israel for the stall in peace talks.  While Israel has been painted the bad guy for the negotiations breakdown, Makovsky comments Israel has taken steps to prepare negotiations:

DAVID MAKOVSKY: Look, I disagree with Amjad.

I think, you know, for this -- I don't agree with the Netanyahu government on every point, but it has agreed to a qualified settlement moratorium, more than any of its predecessors, for a 10-month period, reduced checkpoints, all but -- it was at 41. Now it's down to 14.

And I think that the key is, keep our eye on the ball. Our ball is to -- to solve this problem, not to deal with the symptoms. And that's through the proximity talks, which will be a transition to direct talks.

JEFFREY BROWN: Just to explain that, the proximity talks are a way of getting towards the much larger, deeper issues, right?

DAVID MAKOVSKY: Right. Right. Right.

Brown asks Makovsky how Israelis feel about the Obama.   He reiterates what Obama already knows, that Israelis find "a certain coolness [in] the Obama administration, which is why Biden was sent over for this fence-mending mission."

Of Gen. Petraeus' warning that an ineffective US presence in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process endangers US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Atallah is measured in his response:

AMJAD ATALLAH: He's basically said what everybody who has served in the U.S. military or served in Iraq or Afghanistan has noted, which is that everybody in Afghanistan, everybody in Iraq, everybody in any area that the United States is operating in actually cares about Palestinians as much as Americans care about Israelis.

We don't have to say it's right or wrong. We care about Israelis for a host of historical and religious reasons. And they do as well. The problem is, of course, that, every time there's a conflict in -- between the Palestinians and the Israelis, it has spillover effects. It has spillover effects everywhere.

It's not a panacea. Solving the Arab-Israeli conflict isn't going to make all of our problems go away in the Middle East. It just increases our leverage and our political capital to address those challenges.

 
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