The US role in the Middle East
With the Arab League backing indirect peace talks, what are the prospects for success?
Determined to solve the Middle East conflict, Barack Obama, the US president, says the next stop will be a global summit if latest proximity talks fail.
The Arab League, a 22-nation body, declared on Saturday that it backed one last round of US-brokered talks between Israelis and Palestinians within a four-month deadline.
Plans to launch the indirect negotiations failed last month over a row about Israeli plans to build 1,600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem.
With Arab countries backing the Palestinians’ return to indirect negotiations with the Israelis under US mediation, what are the chances of success this time, and could there be a breakthrough?
Joining the programme are Ghassan Khatib, the director of the Palestinian Government Media Centre, Yossi Alpher, the former director of the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and co-editor of bitterlemons.org, and Hady Amr, the director of the Brookings Institution in Doha.
This episode of Inside Story aired from Monday, May 3, 2010.