By Zvi Amitai, Huang Heng, Deng Yushan

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visiting US special envoy George Mitchell are set to meet on Tuesday in the latest bid to bridge their gaps on the settlement issue and pave the way for a possible resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

An agreement is expected on a partial moratorium on Israel's settlement construction in the Palestinian West Bank for a few months, as Netanyahu performs what analysts call "political juggling" under domestic and international pressure over this thorny issue.

Juggler in the middle?

Netanyahu has clarified that he is ready to consider halting settlement construction, but has meanwhile raised a number of preconditions, including reciprocal gestures from the Palestinians and the Arab world. Should Mitchell bring good news in this concern, Israel will very likely agree to suspend settlement construction.

Such a position has led many within Israel's political realm, both from the hawkish right and the dovish left, to doubt the intention of the premier, who committed himself only five months ago during the election campaign to continue construction in the West Bank but now could be the one stopping it.

The common belief in the left wing, which includes the Labor party, one of Netanyahu's coalition partner, and the Kadima party, the main opposition, is that Netanyahu's initiative to resume the political process is not genuine and is possibly intent on delaying the pressure for a while and gaining some extra time.

In the other camp, including Netanyahu's Likud party, rightists fear that the international community would overpower Netanyahu and wrest a settlement freeze from the traditionally hawkish premier.

From Netanyahu's viewpoint, the truth is that he tries to stand in the middle, Eitan Haber, a political analyst and former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's chief of staff, told Xinhua.

"Just like a juggler in the circus, Benjamin Netanyahu is attempting to throw ten balls in the air and catch all of them. One ball for America, one for the Palestinians, one for angry members of Likud, one for the settlers, one for Labor, and more," he said.

"One needs to be a magician to ensure that all the balls make it safely," he said, adding "should he succeed, we'll say that he is a super-statesman and a super-politician. Should he fail, we'll say he hasn't changed since the last time he was in office."

Keep balance inside

The idea of temporarily freezing settlement construction came from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a source in the Israeli government revealed, who prefers not to be identified.

Barak pushed the idea during his meetings with Mitchell earlier this year and convinced Netanyahu and other senior cabinet members that a temporary freeze would result in a political success that would in turn garner more support from the Israeli public, added the source.

Barak's rationale is that the enormous tensions between Israel and the Palestinians should be eased and a construction freeze would be regarded as a gesture good enough to achieve this goal.

Yet in order to placate the right-wing, including several ministers from the Likud party, Netanyahu decided to allow construction of nearly 3,000 settlement housing units to continue under any moratorium deal.

Meanwhile, he ruled out the possibility of halting construction in East Jerusalem, an Arab-dominated section of the holy city which Israel captured in 1967 while the Palestinians want it to be the capital of their future state.

In view of this "compensation" measure, a majority of the right-wingers have lined up behind Netanyahu, paving the way for Netanyahu to bring his decision to the cabinet for confirmation.

As a result, Barak and his leftist Labor party would note their achievement in persuading hawkish Netanyahu to adopt a more dovish stance, while Likud members could say that Netanyahu "has remained loyal to his national doctrine" and "does not intend under any circumstances to uproot (settlement) communities," said Adi Minz, a former director of the council of Jewish communities in the West Bank.

Ease outside pressure?

Netanyahu's expected decision to halt settlement construction is also designed to ease pressure from the international community, especially the United State, Israel's top ally.

The US government under President Barack Obama, who vowed to be personally involved in reviving the Middle East peace process, has been urging Israel to totally freeze settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

As the Jewish state has so far rebuffed this demand, insisting that natural growth should be allowed to accommodate the normal life of West Bank settlers, ties between the two sides have been noticeably strained.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian side has stressed that they would not return to the negotiation table until Israel halts settlement construction.

Although Israel's offer apparently falls short of the Obama administration's expectations, analysts said that it would help relieve the international pressure upon Israel at least to some extent and put something in Obama's hands as he tries to convene a tripartite summit with Israeli and Palestinian leaders later this month.

At the same time, Netanyahu tries to leave some leeway for himself. He is expected to clarify to Mitchell that should the Palestinians fail to fulfill their obligations, Israel would resume building in the West Bank.

"I'm not worried, even if we'll be told to cease building in the West Bank, even for a long term," said a senior official, who prefers to be anonymous. "In any case, the Palestinians will fail in fulfilling their obligations within the agreement and we won't need to freeze anything."

"If they will fulfill their obligations, then we won't have anyproblem to progress further with additional gestures for them in order to promote the peace process," the official added.

(Xinhua News Agency September 15, 2009)