Is the US serving the Israel-Palestine peace process?

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Europe

By CGTN's The Point

While US Vice President Mike Pence is resuming his Middle East visit, including stops in Israel, Egypt and Jordan, to spread Washington’s controversial Jerusalem recognition and commitment to the Israel-Palestine peace process, experts instead argued that the US isn’t a suitable mediator in the intensifying conflict.

“The US cannot really be a fair and honest broker in this conflict,” Hamed Mousavi, a political science professor at the University of Tehran, commented on CGTN’s The Point (@thepointwithlx). “The peace process is essentially dead.”

He noted that Trump’s latest favor of Jerusalem as Israeli capital in early December has led to the belief that even the US administration itself recognizes the two-state solution and the peace process has died.

Doga Eralp, a professor at School of International Service of American University, pointed out that Pence is trying to “strengthen its relations with the three critical actors” regarding the possible two-state solution, and “reemphasize US commitment to peace.”

But the US, on Tuesday, sent a notification to the UN that it is holding up 65 million US dollars of a planned 125 million US dollar funding installment for Palestinian refugees, which Eralp believed is a “punishment” to the Palestinian administration, and has complicated its commitment.

“I’m not sure how he [Pence] is gonna be able to do it after two very critical decisions US administration has made,” Eralp doubted. “They have damaged US position in the Middle East.”

Despite their close economic and military ties with the US, Egypt and Jordan "will certainly try to distance themselves [from the US] to regain their own credibility," Nadim Shehadi, director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at The Fletcher School of Tufts University, commented.

Besides, Shehadi indicated a peace talks prospect as the “unintended consequence” of Trump’s Jerusalem recognition in that the issue, which has been put back on the burner since Arab Spring, has now come to the forefront.

“Peace in the Middle East now is probably dependent on a much broader set of actors in the Arab world—many in the Gulf and North Africa—who are more willing to work on the peace process,” he said.

The Point with Liu Xin is a 30-minute current affairs program on CGTN. It airs weekdays at 9.30 p.m. BJT (1330GMT), with rebroadcasts at 5.30 a.m. (2130GMT) and 10.30 a.m. (0230GMT).