The Palestinians are still waiting to see Obama's peace plan

Six months after U.S. President Barack Obama took office, the Palestinains are still waiting for his long-promised peace plan.
In fact, the enthusiasm in Palestinian circles that accompanied his election and the hope created by comments made by officials in his adminsitration reflecting a determination to see "all" Jewish settlement activity stopped, is gradually giving way to some doubt that the U.S. President may be trying to reach an arrangement with Israel to help revive deadlocked peace talks.
"Where is this plan we have been promised? We hear of a crisis between Israel and the United States over settlements, but we're worried Obama may cave in to pressure and allow for some settlement growth here and there, or understand Israel's jusitification for keeping settlement blocs," a senior Palestinian politician said.
Haaretz' diplomatic editor Aluf Benn wrote an article on Friday titled: "Don't worry Netanyahu, Obama peace plan is still far off". http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1100767.html
"All the reports emanating from Washington indicate that Obama will not issue a detailed peace plan any time soon. Netanyahu's fear - that Washington will demand that he withdraw from all the territories and divide Jerusalem - will not become reality in the near future," Aluf Benn wrote.
But senior Western diplomats told me this week that the Palestinians will not have to wait too long for Obama to act.
One diplomat said the United States was working on creating a positive environment for reviving peace talks that have been suspended since the Israeli elections took place and brought a right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu who accepted the two-state solution only with Obama breathing down his neck.
The Americans want to get what they call "deposits" from Israel, the Arabs, and the Palestinians, steps that will bring the sides closer to implement commitmnets under the 2003"road map" for peace, and additional normalization steps by Arabs to convince the hard-line Israeli government to join.
"Israel has offered something on a settlement freeze but Washington is pushing for a commitment closer to Israel's road map commitments, mainly a complete settlement freeze," the Western diplomat said.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is not happy with Obama's focus on the settlements issue.
"Instead of a political process, the issue of settlement construction commands the agenda between the United States and Israel. This is a mistake that serves neither the process with the Palestinians nor relations between Israel and the Arab world. Moreover, it has the potential to greatly shake U.S.-Israeli relations," Olmert said in an article published in todays Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071603584.html
Many Arab states are willing to take some normalization steps towards Israel such as opening their closed offices in Israel and allowing Israel to open commercial offices on their soil, give permission to Israeli planes to use their airspace, etc but not Saudi Arabia, Arab and Western diplomats said. The U.S. administration is still pressing Saudi Arabia to show flexibility or at least to give the nod to the Arabs to go ahead.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to stop incitement against Israel by the Palestinians, pursue security measures, and retract his precondition not to sit down with Netanyahu until the latter freezes all settlement activity.
The Palestinians hope Washington will succeed in its endeavors with Israel otherwise Abbas's already weak standing among his own people will become worse. He will have to come up with a very good excuse to explain why he would sit with Netanyahu whose Bar-Ilan university speech reminded people of Golda Meir's era when she said the Palestinian people did not exist.
"There's going to be a package. (Obama's envoy George) Mitchell will wrap things up fairly soon and we'll say: Let's go ahead, the talks will start," a senior diplomat said.
American officials say Obama may start talks in one of two months from now and his timeline for ending those negotiations is 18 months, with or without deposits from Israel, the Arabs, or the Palestinians.