The move drew a sharp response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who warned Abbas that his alliance with Hamas would doom peace efforts.

The deal announced Monday in Doha, Qatar, removes a major stumbling block to carrying out a reconciliation accord signed by the two Palestinian movements last year. The understanding, brokered by the emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, was reached in talks he hosted between Abbas, who heads Fatah, and Khaled Meshal, the exiled political leader of Hamas.

In a statement, both sides said that Abbas would lead an interim government “of independent technocrats . . . whose task will be to facilitate presidential and parliamentary elections and begin the reconstruction of Gaza.”

Abbas promised “to implement this agreement as soon as possible,” and Meshal said “we are serious about healing the wounds . . . to reunite our people on the foundation of political partnership.”

Fatah and Hamas were deadlocked for months over who would be prime minister of the interim government. Hamas rejected Salam Fayyad, the Western-backed prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, because he had led a crackdown on Islamist group in the West Bank.

Having Abbas at the helm of the interim government, holding the title of prime minister as well as president, could help preserve Western support, including crucial financial aid, for the Palestinian Authority.

The European Union, one of the major financial backers of the Palestinian Authority, said it looked forward to continuing its support, provided the new government was committed to non-violence, recognized Israel and accepted previous agreements and a negotiated peace settlement with Israel.

Hamas, which for years carried out deadly suicide bombings and has fired rockets into Israel, rejects those conditions. Hamas is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union and has been boycotted by much of the West.

A State Department spokeswoman said that U.S. officials had not had a chance to talk to Palestinian officials or review details of the deal. “We are not going to give a grade to this thing until we have a chance to talk to Palestinian Authority leaders about the implications,” spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said during the department’s regular daily news briefing.

Netanyahu warned Abbas that carrying out the pact with Hamas would mean that he will “join forces with the enemies of peace.”

“You can’t have it both ways,” Netanyahu said. “It’s either a pact with Hamas or peace with Israel.”

Peace efforts have been stalled for well over a year. Exploratory talks last month hosted by Jordan failed to produce progress toward renewed negotiations, and Abbas is considering whether to continue those meetings.

Under the terms of the Fatah-Hamas accord, the interim government, composed of professionals unaffiliated with either faction, is to prepare for elections in May, although after months of delay the timing of that vote remains uncertain. The government also is supposed to lead efforts to help rebuild areas of the Gaza Strip heavily damaged by an Israeli war against Hamas in 2008 and 2009.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Abbas, said that the joint government would be “a technical government more than a political one” and that diplomatic affairs would “remain with the presidency and the Palestine Liberation Organization.”

Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior Fatah official, said he hoped the new government could be announced at a Feb. 18 meeting of Palestinian factions.

Hamas won the last Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, and it routed Fatah in a brief factional war in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, seizing control of the territory. Since then, Fatah has led the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank, with each faction jailing activists, closing offices and banning demonstrations by its rival.

With Syria in turmoil, the exiled political leaders of Hamas, based for years in Damascus, have left the country as the movement seeks to realign itself in a shifting Middle East. Meshal, who has been staying in Qatar, visited Jordan last month with the Qatari crown prince, signaling a thaw in relations. Jordan had deported Meshal and banned Hamas in 1999.

WP

On top of the council’s recommendation to its 47 members, including six nations currently on the Security Council, there was also an encouraging nod from the European Parliament, the elective arm of the European Union, which last week termed the bid for statehood “legitimate.” And on Wednesday the executive board of UNESCO, the U.N.’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, voted overwhelmingly to put the question of Palestinian membership to its 193 members later this month, even if its parent organization has not yet acted.

“The timing is good,” says Riyad al-Maliki, the Palestinian foreign minister, of the flurry of multilateral encouaragment. “This is really important in terms of anybody who’s trying to undermine our achievement.”

“Anybody” would include Israel, which correctly sees the Palestinian bid as an attempt to gain leverage in moribund peace talks aimed at ending the 44-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the ultimate precondition to realizing a state called Palestine. The Israeli foreign ministry issued a statement saying the UNESCO move “negates the efforts of the international community to advance the political process.”

There was also a slapdown from the Obama administration, which has a longstanding commitment with Israel to protect it at the United Nations, and any other international forums that tend to pile up resolutions condemning the Jewish State. UNESCO has been historically prominent on that list, having once equated Zionism with racism. But the agency has since remade itself, and the specific complaint of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was that it was “inexplicably” putting the cart before the horse: Let the U.N. act first, she told reporters.

“If she means what she says I would agree with her,” Abbas replies. “But she doesn’t mean what she says.” The United States, he points out, is doing all it can to thwart the Palestinian bid. Not only has President Obama vowed to use the U.S. veto in the Security Council to prevent full membership, his administration is working hard to prevent the measure from even emerging from committee.

There’s intense lobbying of nations that currently hold rotating Security Council seats — the swing voters include Portugal, Gabon, Colombia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The U.S. hope is to leave Palestinians short of the nine votes required to move the application to the level where the veto would become the only way to stop it, and spare the U.S. playing at least the conspicuous heavy.

The Palestinians are scrambling, too. From Strasbourg, Abbas headed across the Atlantic to the Dominican Republic — where, by chance, Clinton was a day earlier — then El Salvador, and finally Colombia, where he hopes to persuade President Juan Manuel Santos to join nearly all of the rest of Central and South America in backing the statehood bid. As luck would have it, Colombia, which has been showered with defense aid from Washington in recent decades, has a seat on the current Security Council seat. “We will get the nine, if not even more,” insists al-Maliki, who reckons he’s visited 50 countries in the last three months. “The fact that the president is going to the Caribbean is evidence that we are not giving up.”

The Palestinians will also hit Africa this month — hello, Gabon — but the final battleground will be Europe. If, as all expect, Washington prevails in the Security Council and full membership is denied, the Palestinians could regroup and take their case to the General Assembly. The assembly cannot bestow full membership status, but it could elevate Palestine from “observer entity” to “observer state,” a crucial distinction because the promotion would very likely give Palestinians standing in global legal institutions such as the International Criminal Court, which appears to regard Israel’s 120-plus settlements on occupied Palestinian territory as a violation of the laws of war.

The question of jurisdiction is not automatic, however. The court will hear complaints from Palestine only if it judges it qualifies as a state. That’s a subjective judgment easier to arrive at the longer the list of existing states that say they recognize it as one — and, in the way of the world, the list includes a lot of established, economically powerful states, which are clustered in Europe. (Video: Why Israelis Fear a Palestinian State.)

Right now, most of Europe is on the fence, extending something less than full diplomatic recognition to Ramallah, the West Bank capital. That’s why, from Colombia, Abbas steers toward Paris. And why he started his journey in Strasbourg, where emerging democracies come for merit badges. Begun after World War II at the encouragement of Winston Churchill, the Council of Europe welcomed much of the former East Bloc after the Cold War and now numbers 47 members. Its appeal? Its European Court of Human Rights surely matters. But the key is prestige: “You’re a member of the club,” says Mireille Paulus, secretary to the council’s committee of ministers.

Palestine was named a “Partner for Democracy,” a designation shared only by one other Arab state, Morocco. It’s not membership, just encouragement; but encouragement is what Palestinians need, Abbas tells the delegates seated, in alphabetical order by last name, in the auditorium known as the “hemicycle.” “We have always underlined our commitment to international legitimacy,” he says. “Our people are waiting, patiently.”

time.com

The crowd, many of them holding posters of Abbas, repeatedly chanted his name as he spoke. Abbas was uncharacteristically animated, shaking his hands, waving to the audience and charming the crowd with references to “my brothers and sisters.”

Abbas call Friday for the U.N. to recognize Palestinian independence has transformed him in the eyes of many Palestinians from gray bureaucrat to champion of their rights. Though Israel and the United States oppose the move and consider it a step back for long-stalled peace talks, it could help Abbas overcome internal struggles and gain the support he will need to get a deal through one day.

In a brief address outside his headquarters in Ramallah, Abbas told the crowd that a “Palestinian Spring” had been born, similar to the mass demonstrations sweeping the region in what has become known as the Arab Spring.

“We have told the world that there is the Arab Spring, but the Palestinian Spring is here,” he said. “A popular spring, a populist spring, a spring of peaceful struggle that will reach its goal.”

He cautioned that the Palestinians face a “long path” ahead. “There are those who would put out obstacles … but with your presence they will fall and we will reach our end,” he said.

The dynamic public appearance was a noticeable change for the 76-year-old Abbas, who was elected shortly after Arafat’s death seven years ago. While Arafat was known for his trademark olive-green military garb and fiery speeches, Abbas favors suits and typically drones on in monotone.

In seeking U.N. recognition, Abbas “moved the feelings and emotions of the ordinary Palestinian,” said Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, a respected Palestinian academic in Jerusalem. “He gave the people national pride after they were denied it.”

Abbas’ calls for nonviolence and his successes in restoring law and order to the West Bank have won him respect in Israel and abroad. But at home, he is often seen as weak and ineffectual in his dealings with Israel and the rival Hamas movement, which seized control of the Gaza Strip from his forces in 2007.

Abdul-Hadi said that at the end of a long career, Abbas is thinking about his legacy and wants to be remembered as the man who led his people to independence. He said it was no accident that on Sunday, Abbas delivered his speech outside the memorial where Arafat is buried.

Abbas has asked the U.N. Security Council to recognize an independent Palestine in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. Some 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Abbas is turning to the United Nations in frustration after nearly two decades of unsuccessful peace efforts that were derailed at various times by violence, indecision and intransigence. Abbas says he will return to the negotiating table only if Israel halts settlement construction and accepts the pre-1967 lines as the basis for talks.

Israel and the U.S. oppose the U.N. bid, saying there is no substitute for direct negotiations. But with Israel continuing to build settlements, Abbas says there is no point in talking.

It is unclear what the U.N. application will actually accomplish.

The U.S., as a member of the Security Council, has already promised to veto the request if the Palestinians can muster the nine votes needed for passage — which itself is far from certain. If that happens, the Palestinians say they will seek enhanced observer status from the General Assembly, as a “nonmember state.” Passage is virtually guaranteed, but this would be largely symbolic.

The Palestinians acknowledge that any victory at the U.N. will not change the situation on the ground. But they believe an international stamp of approval of a Palestine in the 1967 lines would bolster their negotiating position in the future. The issue is likely to face weeks, perhaps months, of diplomatic wrangling.

In the meantime, the effort is likely to continue to bolster Abbas’ standing at home.

Jamil Rabah, an independent West Bank pollster, said surveys consistently show Abbas to be the most trusted Palestinian leader, with 35 percent support, well ahead of his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, and the leader of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh.

He thinks that Abbas’ speech Friday at the U.N. will only increase that number.

“It seems his popularity is rising,” he said. “The steps he is taking indicate he is brave and strong. They used to say he was an American puppet, and he is showing he is not a puppet.”

Increased support could bolster Abbas in his dealings with Hamas. The sides agreed to reconcile in May, but those efforts have deadlocked. Hamas hasn’t reacted publicly to Abbas’ U.N. speech.

It might also enable him — if peace talks do somehow resume — to more easily rally public support to conduct peace talks that would inevitably include concessions.

Already, the U.N. gambit seems to be increasing his standing in the wider Arab world.

“I have attended all the U.N. General Assembly meetings for the past 33 years but I have never heard clapping that lasted more than or higher than that given to President Mahmoud Abbas, which means Palestine,” wrote Jihad al-Khazen, a veteran columnist in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper.

The international community, meanwhile, is continuing to search for a formula to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to negotiations.

The Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., European Union, Russia and U.N. — on Friday issued a statement calling for a resumption of peace talks without preconditions and a target for a final agreement by the end of 2012.

Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said Sunday that his government should accept the Quartet proposal. But Abbas signaled it was a nonstarter as long as it doesn’t include a settlement freeze.

“We will not accept anything but … a halt settlement construction completely,” he said.

Amid the impasse, both Israeli and Palestinian officials have expressed fears that the tensions could explode into violence. One Palestinian was killed in the West Bank on Friday after a clash between settlers and villagers.

On Sunday, residents in the same village, Qusra, found 400 olive trees uprooted or destroyed. They blamed residents of a nearby hardline settlement.

Farmer Ayman Odeh said the trees were laden with ripe olives — an important cash crop for the village. “Imagine how long we worked on those trees, to see them broken now,” Odeh said.

Extremist settlers frequently destroy Palestinian-owned olive trees to protest what they feel is unfair treatment by the Israeli government.

AP/ USA today

In Ramallah, a flag-waving, whistling crowd packed into the downtown area to show its support for President Mahmoud Abbas, who had come under intense pressure from the U.S. and others to withdraw the application at the last minute.

“I am with the president,” said Muayad Taha, a 36-year-old physician, who brought his two children, ages 7 and 10, to witness the moment. “After the failure of all other methods (to win independence) we reached a stage of desperation. This is a good attempt to put the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people on the map. Everyone is here to stand behind the leadership.”

The joy over Abbas’ move was marred by violence just hours earlier. Near the West Bank village of Qusra, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man during rock-throwing clashes between the villagers and Israeli settlers, according to witnesses and military accounts.

Earlier Friday, Palestinians supporting the recognition bid clashed with Israeli soldiers in three West Bank locations.

At Qalandiya, a major Israeli checkpoint between the West Bank and Jerusalem, Israeli troops fired tear gas to disperse Palestinian stone-throwers. The confrontations lasted several hours, and by late afternoon, and medics said some 70 Palestinians had been injured by rubber-coated steel pellets or suffered tear gas inhalation.

In the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, demonstrators carried a chair painted in the U.N.’s signature blue to symbolize the quest for recognition. They burned Israeli flags and posters of President Barack Obama, and threw stones before being enveloped by tear gas fired by Israeli troops. Clashes were also reported in the nearby village of Bilin.

Abbas has called for peaceful marches in support of his bid to win U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War.

In the West Bank, outdoor screens were set up in town squares for residents to watch Abbas’ speech together. A popular song about the recognition bid, with the verse “Announce it, my people, announce it, the state of Palestine, announce it,” blasted from car stereos. Motorists honking horns drove through the streets.

Full U.N. membership can only be bestowed by the U.N. Security Council, where Abbas’ request will almost certainly be derailed — either by a failure to win the needed nine votes in the 15-member body or by a U.S. veto if the necessary majority is obtained.

The Palestinians say they are seeking full U.N. membership to underscore their right to statehood, but have left open the option of a lesser alternative — a non-member observer state. Such a status would be granted by the General Assembly, where the Palestinians enjoy broad support.

Siding with Israel, Obama has said a Palestinian state can only be established as a result of negotiations, and that there is no short-cut to independence.

Abbas has said negotiations remain his preference, but that he will not resume talks — frozen since 2008 — unless Israel agrees to the pre-1967 frontier as a baseline and freezes all settlement construction on occupied land. The Palestinian demands are widely backed by the international community, including the U.S., but Obama has been unable to persuade Israel’s hardline prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to agree to them.

Netanyahu says he wants to negotiate without preconditions and accuses the Palestinians of missing an opportunity for peace. Abbas says settlement expansion pre-empts the outcome of negotiations

Scheduled to speak an hour before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the address by the 76-year-old Palestinian Authority president will be the climax of a week that has seen his quest for international recognition suffer repeated setbacks. The U.S. and Israel leaned on Security Council members that back the Palestinian statehood initiative to abstain from voting, leaving Abbas fighting to retain support in the 15- member body.

Two days ago, Abbas was the picture of dejection, grabbing his head in his hands as he listened to U.S. President Barack Obama tell the same audience of global leaders that his pursuit was misguided.

“Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN,” Obama said, as the U.S. deployed its diplomatic might to block the Palestinian’s efforts.

Still, for Abbas, who has talked of retiring next year, this has been a rare moment when the Palestinian situation has received world attention, putting him at the center of a swirl of high-level diplomacy. Abbas has staked out a legacy as father of a Palestinian state if and when it is accepted as a UN member nation.

The Palestinian leadership has been actively preparing to seek UN-sanctioned statehood for almost two years, which has included improving the administration needed for the economy of a state under Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Stalled Negotiations

The timing for this week’s bid follows the collapse of peace talks last September after Netanyahu’s decision not to extend a 10-month partial freeze on construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Abbas has been unwilling to resume talks while building continues and Netanyahu hasn’t offered to resume the freeze.

Faced with a negotiating stalemate and emboldened by a wave of popular uprisings in the Arab world that have left Israel more vulnerable, the Palestinians said the timing was right to force the issue of an independent state outside of the route of direct talks with the Israeli government.

“It never occurred to me that the Palestinian move for UN endorsement of its statehood was a sign of strength,” Robert Zelnick, a Boston University professor and Middle East analyst for the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said in an interview. “They are misreading the political situation.”

Obama’s Meetings

During his 53-hours in New York, Obama met with Netanyahu and Abbas on the same day. With reporters and TV cameras briefly present, he told the Israeli leader Sept. 21 that “the bonds between the U.S. and Israel are unbreakable.” Netanyahu responded in kind, saying Obama’s support was a “badge of honor.” The Abbas meeting was shorter, less than an hour, and the White House said little about it afterwards.

While Palestinian officials were under no illusion that Obama would change his mind, they nevertheless were hoping for a speech that would forcefully repeat his May 20 call for Israel to agree to borders of a Palestinian state “based on the 1967 lines” before the Six-Day War. That didn’t happen, nor did Obama unveil a new peace initiative.

“The serious gaps in his speech have to do with what we consider the absolute minimum for continuing through the peace process and that is the people under occupation that started in 1967,” Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath said in New York Sept. 21. He was referring to Palestinian residents of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Membership Process

For Palestinian membership to come to a vote, a country on the Security Council has to prepare a formal draft resolution. Lebanon, which presides this month over the body and is also the only Arab country in the decision-making body, is the most likely candidate for that task. The procedures permit any member to ask for a vote any time, after giving the members 24-hour notice.

The council can delay the process. For South Sudan, it took just three days to make the African country the UN’s 193rd member, while Jordan had to wait five years before receiving membership in December 1955. After U.S. pressure, the Palestinians may not have the nine votes they need which, in any event, would lead to a promised U.S. veto.

“They will not be jerked around here,” a legal adviser to Abbas, Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, said in an interview. “This strategy has been in place for a year and it’s been carefully prepared.”

General Assembly

The Palestinians can seek to overrule the Security Council by taking their case directly to the General Assembly, where they can count on more than the 129 votes needed in the 193- member assembly to pass the measures, according to Boyle.

The route would involve attempting to invoke Resolution 377, known as Uniting for Peace, a U.S. initiative adopted in 1950 during the Korean War to circumvent the Soviet Union’s blocking action on South Korea.

It is a rarely used mechanism by which a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly can override the Security Council — and its veto-wielding members — when the 15-member decision-making body “fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”

Abbas’s prospects for success in the UN may be little better than those for successful peace negotiations.

According to an International Court of Justice advisory opinion, this resolution cannot be used to override U.S. opposition to the Palestinian membership application. The UN Charter’s rulebook also states that the General Assembly shall consider membership applications “if the Security Council recommends the applicant state for membership.”

BW/ Bloomberg

Mr Obama will also meet Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu amid frantic diplomacy aimed at averting a crisis.

The US president has vowed to veto the bid, backing Israel’s view that direct talks offer the only route to peace.

But efforts by US, European, Russian and UN mediators have yet to produce guidelines for the resumption of talks.

The last round of talks broke down a year ago.

Mr Abbas is set to launch the statehood bid on Friday, after his address to the United Nations General Assembly, with a written request to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

But Mr Obama will ask him not to push for a vote in the Security Council, where the US has promised a veto, to give the “quartet” of mediators time to produce a statement that would be the basis for resumed peace negotiations.

“With both the Israelis and the Palestinians, the president will be able to say very directly why we believe action at the United Nations is not the way … to achieve a (Palestinian) state,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters.

‘Two states’

The quartet aims to give the two sides a year to reach a framework agreement, based on Mr Obama’s vision of borders fashioned from Israel’s pre-1967 boundary, with agreed land swaps.

The statement would also endorse the idea of “two states for two peoples, Jewish and Palestinian”, according to the AP news agency.

However, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague acknowledged there had as yet been no progress.

And Mr Obama’s stance has come under fire from Republican opponents.

Texas Governor Rick Perry said: “The Obama policy of moral equivalency, which gives equal standing to the grievances of Israelis and Palestinians, including the orchestrators of terrorism, is a dangerous insult.”

Both Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas have said they are prepared to engage in direct talks. But Mr Abbas has so far appeared determined to press ahead with the statehood bid.

If his request is approved by Mr Ban, the Security Council would then examine and vote on it. In order to pass, the request must get the votes of nine out of 15 council members, with no vetoes from the permanent members. The US has said it will use its veto.
‘Self-determination’

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said he thought the bid could win the backing of nine council members.

“We hope the United States will revise its position and be on the side of the majority of nations or countries who want to support the Palestinian right to have self determination and independence,” Reuters news agency reported him as saying.

However, before leaving for New York, Mr Netanyahu told members of his Likud party the path to peace was “through dialogue and not through unilateral declarations”, AFP news reported.

Should the Palestinian bid fail, Mr Abbas could ask for a vote of the General Assembly for enhanced observer status, which is enjoyed by others such as the Vatican, in which case no veto would be possible.

While UN recognition would have largely symbolic value, the Palestinians argue that it would strengthen their hands in peace talks with Israel, especially on the final issues that divide them.

These are the precise location of the border, the status of Jerusalem, the right of return of Palestinian refugees, water, and security.

BBC

Mr. Obama is preparing to deliver that message in a wide-ranging speech, perhaps as early as next week, these officials say. The president intends to argue that bin Laden’s death, paired with popular uprisings sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, signal that the time has come to an end when al Qaeda could claim to speak for Muslim aspirations.

“It’s an interesting coincidence of timing—that he is killed at the same time that you have a model emerging in the region of change that is completely the opposite of bin Laden’s model,” Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser at the White House, said in an interview.

Since January, popular uprisings have overthrown the longtime dictators of Tunisia and Egypt. They have shaken rulers in Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Jordan, marking the greatest wave of political change the world has seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But the push for democracy appears to have stalled in some countries. The street protests against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi have morphed into a civil war, with North Atlantic Treaty Organization backing the rebels. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Bahrain’s ruling Khalifa family have both met demonstrations with violence.

Bin Laden’s death gives Mr. Obama a chance to underscore the belief among many administration officials that the terror leader’s relevance had already begun to diminish during the so-called Arab Spring. Mr. Obama, who has made outreach to the Muslim world a cornerstone of his presidency, plans to describe the Islamic world as at a crossroads, said U.S. officials, making the case that bin Laden represented a failed approach of the past while populist movements brewing in the Middle East and North Africa represent the future.

Mr. Rhodes said timing of the speech remains in flux but Mr. Obama could deliver it before leaving on a five-day trip to Europe on May 23. The White House is already telegraphing the message of the coming speech to the Islamic world by placing American diplomats on Arab television and radio, according to U.S. officials.

The White House is still debating, however, whether Mr. Obama should lay out a concrete plan for revitalizing the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process.

Many Arab governments have been pressing Mr. Obama to publicly outline his own parameters for the creation of an independent Palestinian state as a way to exert more pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visits Washington next week. These diplomats said the Mideast’s democratic surge is raising expectations among their own populations for an end to the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict.

White House officials said they are still reassessing the monumental changes in the Middle East and whether an aggressive U.S. push to resume peace talks would likely be successful.

Last week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas forged a unity government with the militant group Hamas, which the U.S. and European Union designate a terrorist group. Israeli officials have already cited Hamas’s role in the Palestinian Authority as the reason why Mr. Netanyahu is unlikely to unveil any major new overtures to the Palestinians during his Washington trip.

“We need to sort through these issues as we consider the next steps on a peace process,” Mr. Rhodes said. The May 20 Obama-Netanyahu meeting “is a chance for the U.S. and Israel to review the full range of issues, from Iran to the regional change to the peace process.”

Arab officials and Mideast peace advocates say there are major risks for the U.S. and Israel in delaying a return to talks.

Mr. Abbas is pressing the United Nations to recognize an independent Palestinian state during the September gathering of the General Assembly. He has specifically cited his frustration with the lack of progress in negotiations with Mr. Netanyahu, as well as the rising expectations among his own people as a result of the Arab Spring.

“There’s clearly a lot going on in the region, and there’s a case to be made and some are making it, that now is not the time,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder of J-Street, a U.S. lobbying group that advocates Washington laying out its own peace plan, something Israel’s government opposes. “But we do believe that the only way to avoid U.N. action on a Palestinian state in a unilateral kind of way is for either the president or prime minister to put forward” a peace plan.

A number of lawmakers have cited Hamas’s new alliance with Mr. Abbas as reason for the White House to move slowly in restarting the peace process. Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress during his Washington visit as well the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the U.S.’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby.

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister, on Tuesday broke with Israel’s policy of keeping quiet on the regional turmoil, saying the international community’s response to repression of demonstrations in Syria, Lybia and Yemen has been “inconsistent” and “confusing.” In remarks delivered before Mr. Netanyahu’s scheduled White House visit, Mr. Lieberman added that the confusion sends a “damaging message to the people of the Middle East, and further erodes the path to peace, security and democracy for our region.”

Mr. Obama is also scheduled to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Washington next week. The Arab monarch has been at the forefront of Mideast leaders calling for the U.S. to impose its own peace plan on the Israelis and Palestinians. Jordan’s population is 60% Palestinian, and the king has faced his own popular protests in recent months.

WSJ

Here are some questions and answers about what happens next:

WHY IS ABBAS RESHUFFLING THE CABINET?

There has been talk of a reshuffle for many months, but unrest in Egypt and Tunisia seems to have spurred Abbas into action. The move signals a willingness to shake things up. Insiders say the new cabinet will look to boost the government’s profile as it seeks international backing in the standoff with Israel. It will also be tasked with preparing for long-delayed presidential, legislative and local elections called by Abbas at the weekend for later this year.

ARE THESE ELECTIONS LIKELY?

Local elections will not be a problem, but a presidential and parliamentary vote will be much more problematic. For these two ballots, national unity is needed, but the two Palestinian territories — the West Bank and Gaza — have never seemed further apart. The Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza, and Abbas’s Palestinian Authority disagree on the election laws and previous slated ballots have been canceled. Hamas has said it will not recognize this latest electoral move.

East Jerusalem, which is controlled by the Israelis but which the Palestinians want as their future capital, poses another problem. To have any legitimacy in Palestinian eyes, the vote must happen there as well. It happened in the past, but there is no guarantee Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will give it the go-ahead now, with peace talks stalled.

DOES ABBAS PLAN TO STAND FOR RE-ELECTION?

Abbas has often said he will not seek re-election, but he has no clear successor within his secular Fatah party. At least one official has recently suggested that he might soon appoint a vice president. This person could conceivably replace Abbas if a vote is not held in September and he decides to quit regardless.

IS PRIME MINISTER SALAM FAYYAD UNDER THREAT?

Although he formally submitted his resignation, he was immediately asked by Abbas to form the new government. Backed by the West, Fayyad has spearheaded the creation of institutions necessary for the establishment of a state. However, he does not have a popular following and is not seen as a possible presidential candidate.

ARE PALESTINIANS LIKELY TO COPY THE EGYPTIAN PROTESTS?

There have only been a few, small West Bank protests, with one anti-Mubarak demonstration turning into an anti-Abbas rally. However, Abbas’s security forces have been quick to prevent large-scale gatherings that could challenge his authority and bolster Hamas. Hamas’s security forces have also moved quickly to hinder protests against the movement’s rule in Gaza.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi urged Palestinians on Sunday to seize the moment and rise up against Israeli occupation. But there has been no sign of such a movement taking shape. Some analysts have suggested Palestinians may take to the streets to press Abbas to reconcile with Hamas and end security coordination with Israel.

WILL THIS HAVE ANY IMPACT ON THE PEACE PROCESS?

There are no talks going on with the Israelis, Abbas’s own negotiating team is in disarray after the recent publication of hundreds of their secret diplomatic documents and the Americans have taken time out from trying to press for talks. Given this, on-going Palestinian political maneuverings will have little or no impact, for now. Reuters

The negotiations involving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are part of a process aimed at closing a peace deal within the next 12 months. The process kicked off earlier this month during a meeting between Netanyahu and Abbas in Washington that Clinton hosted.

Clinton and Mitchell are expected to continue talks with the leaders in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

This isn’t Clinton’s first attempt to participate in an attempt to secure a two-state solution.

As first lady, though not a principal negotiator, she traveled to the Middle East to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in support of President Bill Clinton’s policies on the issue. The president eventually hosted Israeli and Palestinian leaders at Camp David, Maryland, for what proved to be unsuccessful final-status talks.

Now, as secretary of state, Clinton has a second chance and a more direct platform to help the parties reach a comprehensive settlement.

Should Clinton help shepherd an agreement, it would “fulfill a longtime desire to succeed in this area,” said Ned Walker, who was U.S. ambassador to Israel during part of President Clinton’s second term.

“She has something of a long history of being involved” in the region, said Walker, who also used to be an assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. “This would be a great fulfillment for her personally and for the administration and the country.”

We’ve been here before and if history is a guide, we’ll be here again.

President Barack Obama is aiming for the prize that has eluded many U.S. presidents before him: a deal to form an independent Palestinian state and end six decades of conflict in the world’s most volatile region.

Obama will bring the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to Washington next month for a symbolic handshake and the start, yet again, of a new round of peace talks. The ambitious goal: a peace deal inside a year.

The talks make good on an Obama campaign promise to confront the festering conflict early in his presidency, instead of deferring the peace broker’s role as former President George W. Bush did.

The negotiations also saddle Obama with one of the world’s most intractable problems just when many other difficulties confront him, from a jobless economic recovery to probable midterm election losses.

Every U.S. president for three decades has at least dipped a toe in the swirling currents of Mideast peace, usually with little to show for it. Peace talks have stopped and started so often that even the experts have stopped counting, or count differently.

Aaron David Miller, who advised six secretaries of state on Mideast peace issues, thinks the Sept. 2 resumption of direct talks will be at least the 10th such moment since 1993.

The United States is considered an essential agent of any workable deal, if only because Washington is Israel’s closest ally and main defender.

This time, it is not clear whether the U.S. would eventually draft its own peace plan or remain primarily a referee. Also unclear is whether Obama would convene his own high-stakes peace summit, in the mold of Camp David meetings that succeeded, under Jimmy Carter, and failed, under Bill Clinton.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, accompanied by special Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell, talks with the media about Mideast peace talks, Friday, Aug. 20, 2010, at the State Department in Washington.

“The enemies of peace will keep trying to defeat us and to derail these talks,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday. “But I ask the parties to persevere, to keep moving forward even through difficult times and to continue working to achieve a just and lasting peace.”

U.S. presidents have sweet-talked some Mideast leaders and tried to strong-arm others. Despite Obama’s resilient popularity abroad, there is little to suggest that these leaders will respond to either tactic. Nor is it clear that they could rally popular support for any deal they might strike.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a hawkish leader beholden to even more hawkish political elements that make up his governing coalition. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is a weak leader whose very willingness to entertain new talks further erodes his credibility among disaffected Palestinians.

The initial reaction from the PLO illustrated just how difficult keeping the talks on track could prove to be.

Yassir Abed Rabbo, a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization's top decision-making body

Yassir Abed Rabbo, a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization’s top decision-making body, the Executive Committee, warned that any Israeli settlement activity during the negotiations “would threaten the continuity of these talks.”

The breakthrough after a nearly two-year hiatus in face-to-face negotiations brings the two sides back to where they were when the last direct talks began in November 2007, near the end of the Bush administration.

Those talks broke down after Israel’s 2008 military operation in Gaza and seemed even more remote upon Netanyahu’s election last year on a much tougher platform than his predecessor’s.

Still, like president before him, Obama is gambling on the adage that in the Mideast standing still means you are going backward.

Miller sums it up this way: Peace negotiations are not unlike friendships or business propositions. They benefit from sincerity and attention, and they can succeed when both sides see it in their interest to make a deal.

Are Netanyahu and Abbas ready to give it a real shot?

Is Obama prepared to get his hands dirty?

“You answer both those questions ‘yes,’ and we’re in business,” Miller said. “You answer with one ‘no,’ and you may as well hang a closed for business sign on the peace talks.” AP