This article was published by Agence France Presse, January 25, 2009
JERUSALEM (AFP) – US peace envoy George Mitchell will find a region in disarray when he arrives this week on his first visit to try to cement a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants.
The Jewish state is busy with an election campaign and the Palestinians are divided more deeply than ever in the wake of the deadly three-week Gaza war.
Mitchell is due to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah on Wednesday to review "how to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process," an official said.
But Abbas is a weakened figure whose writ no longer runs in the Gaza Strip where the Islamist Hamas movement retains power, despite the Israeli army assault that left more than 1,300 dead.
Abbas faces a battle with Hamas, which has declared victory in surviving the Israeli offensive, just to control international relief efforts. His calls for a Palestinian unity government have gone unheeded.
And Israel's leading parties are squabbling over who is best placed to work with US President Barack Obama and his "aggressive" push for peace.
Mitchell is to arrive in Israel on Tuesday night and hold talks over the following two days.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni charged that a government led by election favourite Benjamin Netanyahu could cause a "clash" with the United States.
"Israel and the United States can head toward full cooperation over common goals such as fighting terror, stopping Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah," she said.
"Israel and the United States can also reach a clash. It depends who will be here. If whoever is here stops the peace process and thinks that the world will be with him, will find himself in a head-on collision with the United States in 20 seconds."
Deputy prime minister Haim Ramon added his own warning: "Anyone who today wants to continue the settlements and annexe all the (occupied) territories will bring a major catastrophe on Israel.
"All that will cause a confrontation not just with the United States but the whole world," he said.
Livni leads the ruling centre-right Kadima party for the February 10 ballot which pollsters are predicting will result in a coalition government of Netanyahu's Likud, the far-right Yisrael Beitenu and conservative Jewish religious parties.
A Likud party official scoffed at Livni's comments.
"She is under pressure, because the polls predict that Kadima will lose. Benjamin Netanyahu is the best placed Israeli leader to handle our relations with Washington and defend Israel's interests," he said.
Netanyahu had already tried to cool fears of a drift to the far-right, saying: "If I win the elections, I won't form an extreme right wing government."
To add to the complications, Kadima Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faces corruption charges and is standing down from politics at this election.
But Mitchell, an Arab-American, is no stranger to the challenges of the six-decade Israel-Palestinian conflict.
He led a fact-finding mission into the causes of the 2000 second intifada or Palestinian uprising against occupation. The 2001 Mitchell report called for a halt to all violence and a freeze of Israeli settlements on Arab territory.
Obama appointed the 75-year-old on Thursday and dispatched him to the region to ensure a "durable" and "sustainable" ceasefire in Gaza after Israel's offensive.
Israel and Hamas declared unilateral ceasefires on January 18 and Israel completed its withdrawal from the territory on January 21.
However Israel has warned it will not hesitate to bomb the strip again if arms smuggling resumes and Hamas, which retains the capacity to send rockets to southern Israel, has demanded that the Gaza borders be fully open.
Mitchell arrives while both sides are negotiating in Egypt to try to consolidate the ceasefire.
On the ground in Gaza, residents were still picking through rubble, with major reconstruction efforts blocked because of closed borders.
Israel has kept the crossings shut, saying it will cooperate with rebuilding efforts only if Hamas, which Israel brands a terror outfit, does not control them.
War damage is estimated at 1.9 billion dollars (1.4 billion euros).
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