Jan 22 2015
Is Quartet making comeback?
By Daoud Kuttab
The statement was made Jan. 15 by US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power in New York. The setting was the UN Security Council’s monthly debate on the Middle East, the scene of a failed attempt to set an end date to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The justification, as expressed by Power, was to “urge both parties to exercise maximum restraint and avoid steps that threaten to push Israeli-Palestinian relations into a cycle of further escalation.”
A look at the website of the Quartet’s representative, Tony Blair, shows that the last statement by the four major world parties was made Sept. 27, 2013, and contained a briefing by the United States on the direct talks. Since that date, the Quartet has been silent, except for protocol issues and resolving some problems around the movement of people and goods, especially the Gaza Strip.
Furthermore, the last entry on the site of the Quartet representative was made Dec. 10, 2014, and contained a statement by Blair on the death of Palestinian Minister Ziad Abu Ein during a nonviolent anti-settlement protest near Ramallah. Continue Reading »