Long-Shot Talks On Mideast Peace Open In D.C.

President Obama kicked off negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Washington by denouncing an attack on Israeli settlers in the West Bank that points up some of the thorniest issues between the two sides.

President Obama opened a new round of Middle East peace talks Wednesday with a condemnation of fresh bloodshed in the West Bank.

Standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Obama denounced the murders of four Israeli settlers in the Palestinian-controlled territory. The Palestinian militant group Hamas has claimed responsibility for the attack, which underlined some of the thorniest issues hindering a peace agreement.

Those issues include the ability of the Palestinian Authority to prevent such attacks, and the question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

President Obama held bilateral meetings throughout the day with key participants in the talks. The leaders of the two sides will meet at a White House dinner tonight and start formal talks tomorrow, their first direct contacts in 20 months.

After meeting privately with Netanyahu, the president spoke out against Tuesday's attack, saying the United States will push back against "these kinds of terrorist attacks," adding "so the message should go out to Hamas and everyone else who is taking credit for these heinous crimes that this is not going to stop us."

Netanyahu said the murders would not derail his talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The Israeli prime minister urged Israeli settlers to show restraint after the killings and not retaliate against Palestinians in the area.

A Murderous Message

For their part, Palestinian authorities rounded up some 250 people who they said were associated with Hamas in the West Bank. Hamas leaders based in Gaza said the attack was a message to Israel, designed to show that the militant group has the power to disrupt Israeli plans.

The Associated Press quoted an anonymous Hamas official as saying the attack was also designed to show that Palestinian leader Abbas "cannot protect the security of the Israelis and the settlers."

The attackers killed two men and two women near the entrance to Kiryat Arba, a settlement that is a suburb of the West Bank city of Hebron. Officials say two of the victims were a couple who left a family of six children.

The Palestinian Authority's ability to protect Israelis in the West Bank is key to the current negotiations, because Netanyahu has said that Israeli security will be his main priority.

The attack "shows the power of the few and determined to not only kill people, but to wreak havoc and undermine confidence in the peace talks," says Aaron David Miller, a Middle East scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

"Netayahu is saying [to Abbas] 'I need you to control and silence all the guns in Palestine. This is a demonstration of the fact that Abbas can't do that," says Miller.

The Future of Settlements

The fact that the attack targeted settlers brings up another key element in the dispute: Jewish settlements. A ten-month moratorium on building new housing in the settlements is set to expire on September 26th.

Abbas has said there's no point in discussing the borders of a future Palestinian state if Israel resumes expanding settlements in an effort to shift the boundaries. He said recently that he would walk out of any talks if Israel doesn't extend the freeze.

Analysts say the intransigence of the Israeli and Palestinian positions means the United States is going to have to take a very strong and direct role in moving the parties toward a settlement.

"The ball is in the Obama administration's court," says Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. Levy, a former Israeli official, says the Israeli and Palestinian leaders won't act on their own, because of domestic political pressures.

The task of moving the two sides along will fall to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who will host the first direct talks beginning on Thursday morning.

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