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Quartet 'creating power vacuum' in Middle East

The Independent reports on the failure of the so-called International Quartet to make any impact in resolving the Palestine-Israel situation. With show-pony Blair now the envoy for the Quartet it is almost certain that little, if anything, will be achieved. Rhetoric, and lots of it, yes! Action, nil!

"The international community is "losing its grip" on the Middle East peace process and failing to improve the appalling living conditions for Palestinians, a group of leading NGOs charges today.

The international Quartet – consisting of the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia – is accused of creating a "vacuum of leadership" as the aid agencies complain that "visible progress" in the Middle East has "failed to materialise".

The report says that despite the Quartet saying in June that such progress was vital to building confidence in the negotiating process, it has failed to press home its own calls on Israel for a freeze on settlement building, an improvement in the movement of Palestinian people and goods, and a revival of the collapsed economy in Gaza.

On settlements it says there has been a "marked failure to hold the Israeli authorities to their obligation under the [internationally agreed] road map and international law". It urges the Quartet to go "beyond rhetoric" and take "concrete steps" in the face of a "marked acceleration" in settlement building since Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were kick-started by the Annapolis summit last year.

The report, deliberately issued on the eve of a Quartet meeting tomorrow in New York, seeks to expose a growing gap between the stated policies of the international community on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and what it has delivered in practice.

It says that on about half of the 10 specific recommendations which the Quartet has made in recent months "there has been either no progress or an actual deterioration". It says that "clearly a new approach is warranted" and questions whether there is a future for the Quartet unless there is a "swift and dramatic improvement" in its performance."



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