U.S. efforts to restart Mideast peace process stumbling
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Lack of confidence
Jamil Rabah, head of the Ramallah-based polling group Near East Consulting, told Xinhua that Palestinian faith in the U.S. as an honest and fair broker has never been high in the past bi-monthly polls, and the results showed a decline in the ability of Washington as a mediator.
"Most people believe that the Obama administration is less inclined to work against Israel," he said.
Rahab said that in the beginning of his presidency, Obama was viewed as more honest than his predecessors, but over the time, the number of people with this opinion has decreased. In the latest survey conducted two months ago, only 20 percent said the Obama administration was an honest broker.
Most Palestinians do not believe that Netanyahu is interested in peace, added Rahab.
Meanwhile, Some Israelis are also questioning their trust in their traditional ally.
Jontahan Rynhold from the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at the Bar-Ilan University outside Tel Aviv, said the U.S. position is as strong as it always has been and the current administration is just following the line of previous ones over the last 20 years, during which Washington has always maintained that it cannot deliver peace to the parties and that they have to do so by themselves.
"What they are saying is very disingenuous," Rynhold said, " because for the first year, what the U.S. did was to ask things from Israel."
Regarding Washington's latest military-aid-for-freeze offer, Rynhold said that it had less to do with the regional situation, instead it followed the path of U.S. foreign policy under which Israel always has been rewarded for taking risks.
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