New offer, no agreement over Israel settlements

AP file

Israel claims the entire city as its own undivided capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City and its sites sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians, to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state in principle, but says Jerusalem would remain Israel's "indivisible and eternal" capital. Israel's claim to the eastern part of Jerusalem is not recognized internationally.

Abed Al Hashlamoun  /  EPA

One of the disputed Israeli-occupied territories with areas of limited Palestinian self-government. The roughly 120 Jewish settlements that dot the West Bank have long been a sore point in Mideast peacemaking. Israel began settling the territory soon after capturing it along with Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 war.

The Palestinians say the settlements, now home to roughly 300,000 Israelis interspersed among 2.4 million Palestinians, are gobbling up land they claim for a future state. The international community considers them illegal, and President Barack Obama has been an outspoken critic.

The West Bank encompasses important cities such as East Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem. It would make up the bulk of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, with precise borders to be drawn at the peace table. Expansion of Jewish housing makes those borders ever more complicated.

A 10-month slowdown in West Bank housing construction by Israel expired in late September, and the government did not extend it despite international pleas to do so. The Palestinians had warned the new negotiations would be threatened if building resumes.

Kevin Frayer  /  AP

This 25-mile-long by 7-mile-wide strip of land lying on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea is home to more than 1.5 million Palestinians and is under firm control by the militant Hamas movement. Hamas is opposed not only to the peace talks but also to Israel's very existence.

Gaza, which is also supposed to be part of a negotiated Palestinian state, has been the staging point for rocket attacks on Israel, which has responded with a economically crippling blockade of the territory.

Most of Gaza's residents are from refugee families that fled or were expelled from the land that became Israel in 1948. Of these, most live in impoverished refugee camps to which the United Nations delivers basic services such as health and education.

Israel began curtailing trade and travel in Gaza after Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006. Israel and many Western nations consider Hamas a terrorist organization. Hamas seized control of Gaza the following year, expelling members of the rival Fatah movement.

Since then, Israel has allowed only the most basic humanitarian aid into Gaza though recently, under heavy international pressure, it has partially eased the economic blockade.

Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers say they will never give Israel what it most wants from a Middle East deal, which is recognition of the Jewish state and a legitimate place in the region. They see their Fatah rivals in the West Bank, who will be negotiating with Israel, as appeasers and traitors to the Palestinian cause. Hamas will not attend the talks.

A fortified and strategically important hilly area on the border of Syria, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan. The Golan Heights were part of Syria until 1967, when they were captured by Israel during the Six-Day War. Israel unilaterally annexed the Golan Heights in 1981.

Syria wants to secure the return of the Golan Heights as part of any peace deal. A deal with Syria would also involve the dismantling of Jewish settlements in the territory.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will attend the launch of direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

Egypt in 1979 became the first Arab state to sign a peace deal with Israel. Despite Arab world pressure, Cairo has adhered at least to the formal requirements of its peace treaty.

Egypt has played the role of mediator at several very critical junctures in the peace process with the Palestinians and is a key U.S. ally in the tumultuous region. The. U.S. underwrites much of Egypt's foreign aid.

Damascus is one of Israel's harshest opponents, and supports a number of armed groups that carry out attacks against Israel. Israel has condemned Syria for its support for the Hamas Islamic government in Gaza.

Tensions between Syria and Israel rose this year after Israeli President Shimon Perez accused Syria of supplying Scud missiles to the Lebanon-based Shiite movement Hezbollah, which the U.S. classifies as a foreign terrorist organization. Israel has warned that it will respond to missile attacks from Hezbollah by launching immediate retaliation against Syria itself.

Hamas and 10 other radical Palestinian groups based in Syria have rejected any move by the Palestinian Authority to resume direct peace talks with Israel.

Recent media reports have said the Obama administration is trying to ignite Israel-Syria negotiations in a broader effort to achieve peace in the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel remains interested in negotiating peace with Syria. Damascus has also expressed willingness to return to the negotiating table, although President Bashar al Assad has said he was unwilling to compromise on the return of the Golan Heights, occupied by the Israelis since 1967.

Jordan is considered a very important country in resolving the Mideast conflict due to its proximity to Israel and the occupied territories and its large population of Palestinian refugees.

Jordan, along with Egypt, are the only Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel. Jordan's King Abdullah II, along with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, will attend the launch of the peace talks in Washington.

Jordan is also a strategic ally to the United States in the Middle East.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, in a recent television interview, stressed that Israel's future in the region was at stake in the process being launched in the U.S. capital. "The bigger picture for the Israeli people is Israel's integration in the Arab-Islamic world. That's the prize. But we need to start it in Washington."

Lebanon, a small Middle East sovereign state, has long been the staging ground of proxy wars in the region.

Dozens of private armies grew out of Lebanon's 15-year civil war that ended in 1990 and still flourish 20 years later.

A period of relative stability was shattered in 2006 when an all-out 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel caused significant civilian deaths and heavy damage to Lebanon's civil infrastructure.

Hezbollah remains a central player in Lebanon and has refused appeals by the Western-backed prime minister, Saad Hariri, to disarm. Hezbollah is part of Hariri's government, wielding virtual veto power. Hezbollah sets its own military strategy and it makes decisions that could lead to war without the involvement of the Lebanese state.

The power balance worries the U.S. and Israel, Hezbollah's sworn enemy.

On Aug. 3, the Lebanese army, recipient of U.S. aid and weapons, traded fire with Israeli forces who were pruning a tree on their border with Lebanon. An Israeli officer, two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist died.

Hezbollah was not involved in that fighting, but Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said his country always had concerns the army's weapons could end up in Hezbollah's hands. Now, he said, Lebanon's weapons are being used directly against Israel.