The military men don’t look like diplomats and the sun-baked checkpoint dividing the West Bank from Israel couldn’t have been farther from the Jerusalem hotels and ministerial residences where Israeli-Palestinian peace talks unfold. But the fate of those negotiations depend in large measure on the success of meetings like this one around a faux-wood desk in Lt. Col. Fareis Atilaa’s utilitarian office. …
Atilaa … heads the military unit that coordinates links between Israel and the Palestinian government and security forces in the West Bank town of Jenin. … The meeting was conducted in Arabic. The Palestinians were represented by the Jenin commander, Suleiman Amran [and] a liaison officer … Sitting opposite them were Atilaa and a high-ranking Israeli officer … These twice-monthly meetings are key to the current U.S.-backed attempt to bolster the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas’ moderate government in the West Bank, which remains under the control of the Israeli military. …
This week’s meeting at the Salem checkpoint took place during an important test for the Abbas government: Hundreds of armed security men were brought into Jenin to try to restore law and order to an area long known as a militant hotbed. … The last security contacts like these, in the heyday of peacemaking in the 1990s, were successful for a time. … But they ended in 2000 with the outbreak of violence and the subsequent disintegration of the Palestinian government and its security forces. … But now Israel and Palestinian moderates find themselves facing a common enemy: Hamas, the Islamic group that seized Gaza last June, and its extremist allies. The new security cooperation, like the peace talks themselves, are driven by that shared threat. Access the full article>>
