WASHINGTON (AFP) — US president-elect Barack Obama, who made overhauling US foreign policy a cornerstone of his election bid, may be forced to put Mideast peace on the backburner for several months, analysts said.
As soon as Obama's historic White House victory was announced overnight Tuesday, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called on him to "speed up efforts to achieve peace" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But according to Nathan Brown from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the new administration will not be able to launch an ambitious initiative before Israeli elections set for February 10.
"I would actually expect it to be well into the spring -- not just January when they pick over but you are talking about March or April -- until they can even work out an approach," he said.
Tamara Wittes from the Brookings Institution echoed some of the doubts.
"There's strong logic in favor of pursuing an Israeli-Palestinian process, but there are also ... competing priorities," said Wittes, who was a volunteer adviser to the Obama campaign.
Wittes said the situation on the ground "doesn't bode well for talks right now."
Initially, she said, the new US president must be careful to send out the right signal soon after he takes office on January 20, all the more so as Israel itself faces elections in February.
If he demonstrates a commitment to the peace process, "that might give Israelis more reason to support a candidate on their side who favors negotiations rather than one who says we have no partner," said Wittes.
Yet, Wittes wondered aloud how either candidate would embark on the "massive undertaking" needed to drive the peace process to uncertain success over the long haul.
The latest peace talks, launched a year ago by President George W. Bush in Annapolis, Maryland, outside Washington, have been complicated by internal Palestinian conflicts between Abbas and Islamist Hamas, which took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.
On Wednesday, Hamas called for Obama to learn from the "mistakes" of previous US administrations in dealing with the Muslim and Arab worlds, accusing Bush of errors that "destroyed Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine."
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said: "We want him to support the Palestinian cause or at least not to be biased towards the Israeli occupation."
The Israeli reaction to Obama's election was measured.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who as head of Kadima party is a front-runner to become prime minister, recalled Obama's July visit to Israel, saying it left residents with the feeling that "he is a man who is deeply committed to Israel's security and peace."
Right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Livni's leading electoral rival, expressed conviction in a message to Obama that "We will work together towards peace in our region and a better future for all of us."
But Zalman Shoval who was once Israel's ambassador to the United States said he did not think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was Obama's top priority.
He must first take care of internal issues, Iraq, Iran and then the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although he risks failure on the latter issue if he "doesn't change things quickly."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was due Thursday in Israel, as several ministers in Israel's caretaker government called for a freeze in negotiations in the runup to the elections.
Rice was to take part in a meeting of the Mideast quartet -- the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh from November 8-9 to take stock of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
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