Some Hamas
figures have declared that the ceasefire negotiations have failed, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said the cessation of rocket fire on Israel is a prerequisite for
starting talks, but Palestinian sources who are familiar with Cairo's
efforts to broker a truce said it was too soon to announce that the
talks have collapsed.
...
According to reports in Cairo, these are the conditions for a ceasefire set forth by Israel:
1. A lull for a period of more than 15 years.
2. An immediate cessation of arms smuggling and the transfer of weapons to Gaza.
3. Cessation of
rocket fire on the part of all armed Palestinian factions and an end to
attacks on soldiers near the Gaza border.
4. Israel has the right to hunt down terrorists in the event of an attack or if it obtains information on an imminent attack.
5. The Rafah
border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will remain open, but the
crossings on the Gaza-Israel border will remain closed.
6. Egypt's
politicians, headed by President Mohammed Morsi, will be the guarantors
of any ceasefire agreement. Meaning, the agreement will be backed by
Egypt's political echelon rather than by its security establishment.
This list of demands has not been confirmed by any other source.
Hamas' demands for a ceasefire include the lifting of the naval blockade of Gaza,
international community guarantees for the cessation of targeted
killings, an end to IDF cross-border raids and the cessation of attacks
on fishermen off the coast.
According to Sha'ath, Israel has withdrawn a key demand that
Hamas lay down its arms and make certain that the rocket fire on Israel
is stopped entirely. The Palestinian official said the negotiations have
entered a "very important" phase.
According to YNet, Israel has said that if there is no agreement on a truce in 48-72 hours, it will add a ground attack to the air and naval attacks and persist until Hamas is overthrown.
On the other hand, the fact that we are no longer demanding that Hamas lay down its arms strikes me as absurd.
The one thing that's cute here is that under Islamic law, Hamas is forbidden to agree to a hudna (truce) for more than 10 years.
“If you want Israel to take risks, then its leaders must know that the United States is right next to them,” Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told the president.
Obama politely but firmly disagreed.
“Look at the past eight years,” he said, referring to the George W. Bush administration’s relationship with Israel. “During those eight years, there was no space between us and Israel, and what did we get from that? When there is no daylight, Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states.”
Obama’s Muslim middle name, former anti-Zionist pastor in Chicago and past friendships with prominent Palestinians had shadowed his presidential campaign. He wanted to restore the United States’ reputation as a credible mediator. To do so, he believed that he needed to regain Arab trust — and talk tough to Israel, publicly and privately.
This was the change that Obama had promised — a new approach to old problems. But the stunned silence of Jewish leaders around the table that day suggested the political peril he would face along the way.
“We believed from that point that we were in for problems,” said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who attended the meeting. “And we were right.”
The way Obama managed the Israeli-Palestinian issue exhibited many of the hallmarks that have defined his first term. It began with a bid for historic change. But it foundered ultimately on his political and tactical misjudgments, on a lack of trusted relationships and on an outdated view of a conflict that many of his closest advisers imparted to him. And those advisers — veterans of the Middle East peace issue — clashed among themselves over tactics and turf.
...
Within a week of his appointment, Mitchell was on a plane to Europe and the Middle East for a “listening tour.”
To Obama and Mitchell, it was a propitious time, despite the recent Gaza war. Never before had the governments of the Sunni Muslim kingdoms, from Saudi Arabia to Jordan, shared more strategic interests with Israel. The reason was the common threat of Shiite Muslim Iran, which leaders in Riyadh and Jerusalem held in near-equal disdain.
In the words of one senior administration official, Mitchell’s plan was to “expand the chess board” — that is, to ask Israel and the Palestinians to return to direct talks and to ask the Arab states to make symbolic gestures to show Israel it was serious about a wider peace.
The approach captured the essence of Obama’s view of foreign policy: everyone gives a little, everyone gets a little. And several senior administration officials believed that Obama, after a historic election at home and rock-star popularity abroad, would be able to persuade traditionally recalcitrant Middle East leaders to agree.
But no Arab leader showed an interest in helping Obama with Israel. Mitchell did hear something else on his trip — that a freeze on Israeli settlement construction would send a strong signal that the new president wanted to make a difference.
In other words, the Arabs saw an opportunity to get something for nothing, and Obama fell right into the trap.
Hillary Clinton, Mitchell, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Dennis B. Ross — a Middle East adviser to Obama during the 2008 campaign who joined his administration as a State Department adviser on Iran — were veterans of the Clinton years.
According to former administration officials and outside advisers briefed on some White House meetings, Emanuel, in particular, thought Netanyahu could be pressured to make concessions, just as he had in the 1990s.
Emanuel’s father was born in Jerusalem and, before the state of Israel was created in 1948, belonged to the Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary movement classified as a terrorist group by the British forces it fought. Emanuel served as a civilian volunteer for the Israel Defense Forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
He often told others that he believed his view was consistent with that of the Israeli political center, which had traditionally disliked the settlement project because of its cost and security risks and the moral questions it raised about the occupation of Palestinian land. He also had an outsize say in the Obama administration about Israel policy.
“I have some very smart people advising me on this,” Obama told the Jewish leaders in that first meeting at the White House in July 2009, turning to Emanuel.
“We understand there is a profound political edge to Israeli politics. Rahm understands the politics there and he explains them to me.”
To many in the administration, Emanuel’s instinct was one of “tough love” toward Israel.
“But his depth may not have been as grounded in the realities of the current conflict as it should have been,” said a senior administration official, who worked on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Netanyahu had changed since the 1990s, and so had the Israeli public. From his experience with Clinton, Netanyahu learned that he could not afford to lose his base. For him, a fight with a U.S. president pressuring Israel was a safer political bet than it once had been.
...
On the eve of Abbas’s arrival in Washington in late May 2009 for his first meeting with Obama, Hillary Clinton provided an unscripted push to the Palestinian leader’s position.
At a State Department appearance with the Egyptian foreign minister, Clinton, speaking for Obama, said, “He wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions.’
“That is our position,” she said, outlining a demand publicly stronger than any to date. “That is what we have communicated very clearly.”
White House officials acknowledged recently that her comments were a mistake. But the president declined to soften that position when he had a chance.
...
Around midnight, after touring the Sphinx and pyramids, Obama headed to Dresden, Germany, for a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The U.S. delegation did not stop in Jerusalem, as some Israeli officials had hoped it would. The trip had a planned symmetry, as White House aides recently described, that a few days in Israel would have disrupted.
After a quick meeting with Merkel, Obama headed for the hilltop camp of Buchenwald, an iconic element of the genocidal Nazi network. He met the Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel on his arrival. Wiesel spent time at the camp as a child. His father died there.
Of the horrified liberators who arrived at the camp decades earlier, Obama said, “They could not have known how the nation of Israel could rise out of the destruction of the Holocaust and the strong, enduring bonds between that great nation and my own.”
For the small number of people who witnessed that still afternoon, the memory was indelible. It was also a miscalculation, a sign that the president knew less about the historic shape of the Israeli-Palestinian story than he thought. Some prominent Israelis and Jewish supporters said Obama, in his somber remarks at the gates of the camp, suggested that the state of Israel emerged as a moral response to the Holocaust. But most Israelis believe the state’s legitimacy is rooted in the Bible and Hebrew texts of its people, a central tenet of Zionist thought.
“What you saw, at several turns during Obama’s management of this, was a complete lack of an emotion-based relationship with Israel,” said a former Palestinian political adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide a candid view.
“The Cairo speech was excellent, important,” the adviser said. “But it didn’t preclude a Jerusalem speech. It didn’t show any emotional smarts.”
...
In their meeting, Obama informed Ross that he wanted him to “quarterback” all Middle East policy, including that involving Iran.
Ross was inheriting a policy that he considered politically unfeasible. He believed the haggling over the freeze was wasting Obama’s political capital in a region that once had high hopes for his presidency.
“We had adopted a hard and firm position on this by then,” Ross said in an interview, echoing what he told the president. “The problem was that it put the emphasis on one issue when it wasn’t the only, or even most important, issue and, in any case, needed to be put in context.”
Ross arrived in the West Wing in July 2009, the same month Obama held his first meeting with Jewish leaders. The initial question Ross wanted answered was: Who developed the settlement-freeze idea and was it possible to alter it? What he got was finger-pointing and no clear reply, even among senior officials.
With Mitchell in the region or at his home in Maine, Ross accumulated more influence on the issue as the weeks wore on and progress remained elusive.
“What’s the strategy here?” Obama asked constantly in meetings with Mitchell, Emanuel and others pushing for the settlement freeze, according to participants. “I see you want the moratorium, but how does it get us where we want to be? Tell me the relationship between what we are doing and our objective.”
The senior staff rivalry intensified as the questions persisted.
Administration officials said Mitchell and Ross clashed over responsibilities and policy approach, and Israel appeared to see its influence rise within the West Wing.
To those on Mitchell’s staff, there was confusion about how he could be so inept at the internal White House politics. He had been a skilled Senate majority leader, adept at political infighting.
“So it surprised me that it so surprised him that you have to do that in the job he was in,” said one administration official involved in Middle East policy.
...
Biden soon received disturbing news.
Israel’s Interior Ministry announced the construction of 1,600 new housing units in northern East Jerusalem — a community called Ramat Shlomo — that undermined Mitchell’s success at bringing the two sides closer together.
“It may have been a coincidence, but if so, it was an extraordinary and unfortunate coincidence,” Mitchell said in an interview.
For Biden, who was scheduled to dine with Netanyahu that evening, this was a diplomatic embarrassment. The vice president wanted to issue a statement from Jerusalem, but its wording was the subject of intense debate among his advisers and those back at the White House. Biden showed up for dinner at Netanyahu’s residence more than an hour late, and the statement he finally issued used the term “condemn,” the most severe under consideration. As Ross put it later, according to officials familiar with the debate, he believes that term should be used only to describe events related to terrorism.
Referring days later to the settlement announcement in his speech at Tel Aviv University, Biden noted that he had “condemned it immediately and unequivocally” at “the request of President Obama.”
As Biden flew home that day, his aides believed the episode was over. Some joked that the new Israeli settlement should be renamed “Biden Towers.”
While the vice president was in the air, Obama had breakfast with Secretary Clinton at the White House. By the end of the meal, Clinton returned to the State Department, where she got Netanyahu on the phone.
For about 45 minutes, according to senior State Department and White House officials, some of whom witnessed the call, Clinton sharply criticized the prime minister, calling what had happened a humiliation to the United States.
“She told him that this had created a problematic atmosphere and that we’re looking to you, as a friend, to take some concrete steps to make it right,” said a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Clinton had several items that Obama wanted Netanyahu to address. While they have not been made public, Israeli and U.S. officials acknowledged recently that Netanyahu effectively froze new building in East Jerusalem after the Clinton call [emphasis mine. CiJ].
Read the whole thing (it's much longer). Bottom line: Whether Obama is anti-Israel or not (I believe he is), he screwed up royally. I shudder to think what he might do in another four years (God forbid).
Dennis Ross, a senior aide to President Obama on the Middle East, and a long time peace processor, has stepped down.
Ross, a special assistant to the president, had initially pledged to work for Obama for two years, but extended his time at the White House by another year in light of the Arab Spring upheaval reshaping the Middle East, Carney said.
His departure casts additional doubt over Obama's Middle East strategy, and follows the resignation in May of Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell.
Ross had been central to Obama's efforts to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, dealt a blow last month when the Palestinians gained membership of the UN cultural agency UNESCO, something Obama had sought to prevent
"Obviously, there is still work to do but I promised my wife I would return to government for only two years and we both agreed it is time to act on my promise," Ross said in a brief resignation statement.
Two other factors that might have played into Ross' decision to step down now: With Obama moving into campaign mode, no breakthroughs are likely in the next fourteen months, and Obama's open mic comments about Binyamin Netanyahu in France last Thursday might have made it uncomfortable for Ross - the most pro-Israel member of the White House staff - to continue working there.
Even Mitchell recognizes that 'Palestinians' should have come to the table
Last Monday, former US Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell made his most extensive public remarks about the 'peace process' since leaving office. While he repeated all of the usual platitudes about how Israel has to give the 'Palestinians' a 'political horizon' or we will find ourselves choosing between being Jewish and being Democratic, Mitchell also came out with a pretty explicit recognition of the fact that it was the 'Palestinians' who killed any chance for negotiations.
Mitchell also criticized the Palestinian Authority's responses to American efforts to renew negotiations with Israel. He claimed that the Palestinians were unwilling to accept the 10-month settlement construction freeze declared by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2009; the Palestinians contended that this freeze was "useless," and refused to engage in negotiations.
"They refused to enter into the negotiations until nine months of the 10 had elapsed," Mitchell said. "Once they entered, they then said [the freeze] was indispensable. What had been worse than useless a few months before then became indispensable and they said they would not remain in the talks unless that indispensable element were extended."
While that's obvious to all of us, it's the first time I've seen Mitchell - or anyone else in the Obama administration - admit it.
When George Mitchell was President Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, he was constantly comparing the Israeli-'Palestinian' conflict to Northern Ireland. Now that he is no longer in the White House, look what he says in this piece in which he says that the 'Palestinian' bid for unilateral statehood at the UN hurts the 'peace process.'
Mitchell previously served as a US special envoy to Northern Ireland, where he helped broker a peace deal that established a Protestant-Catholic power-sharing government. But attaining peace in the Middle East is a bigger challenge, he said.
"By comparison the Middle East is a much more complicated, difficult situation," he said. "There are many more factors involved."
Either Mitchell took way too long to get it, or he was letting Obama cue him on what to say while he was working at the White House. If the latter is the case, you have to wonder how and why he put up with it for two years.
So much for the 'biggest Yerushalayim in Jewish history.' When President Obama delivered that bombshell speech at the State Department ten days ago, he was delivering the speech that chief 'Palestinian' negotiatorbottle washerSaeb Erekat asked him to deliver in October 2009 (Hat Tip: Eliana - scroll down to the bottom if you click the link). The following is from minutes of a meeting between Saeb Erekat and then-US Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell that was held on November 1, 2009. SE is Saeb Erekat, GM is George Mitchell and PS is permanent status.
SE noted that it was time for the US to upgrade its position and explicitly endorse the 67 border, as Sec Rice had done during Annapolis – it was agreed then, it is consistent with US policy regarding the occupied territory. GM replied that this means taking a new position. SE said this is a new administration that should state what others have tacitly agreed in the past.
GM noted that difficulties with the Israelis on this and other issues, that they would not agree to any mention of 67 whatsoever and that strongly objected to Obama’s UNGA speech. He said he will continue to pursue the issue next week. SE suggested the following language: “two states along the 67 border with agreed swaps”. He stressed the importance of parallel negotiations of all PS issues.
Anyone still want to argue that Obama's speech did not represent a change? (That is not to say that I am happy with the idea that the only thing that Israel objected to until now was the mention of the '1967 lines.' I'm not).
Here's Christiane Amanpour interviewing former US Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Sunday. Mitchell can't understand why Obama's statement on the '49 armistice lines is so problematic.
Let's go to the videotape.
They should have made it clear, huh?
Here are Jake Tapper and peace processor Aaron Miller talking about Obama's speech.
Let's go to the videotape.
I think Aaron David Miller has it right when he says that Netanyahu and Obama have 'no relationship.' I also think he's right that the 'Palestinians' have spooked a lot of people with the September US business.
And finally we have this from Jordanian King Abdullah.
Let's go to the videotape.
Notice how he says that the Middle East 'peace process' is hopeless. No kidding.
Asaf Romirowsky places a fair amount of the blame for the failure of the 'peace process' on departing Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell.
Mitchell symbolized the Obama Administration’s determination to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict against all odds. The tenacity he used in Northern Ireland proved futile in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Apparently, Mitchell was inept in his attempt to convince the White House that Obama’s speech next week must include a detailed plan for peace in the Middle East.
Even Obama understands that the timing is bad for announcing such plan when there is hardly a peace process in place. Furthermore, Obama would be seen as weak on the heels of the Palestinian threat of a unilateral declaration of statehood and the fake Fatah- Hamas marriage. As such, Obama will be joining Netanyahu in next week’s AIPAC policy conference - the largest gathering of the pro-Israeli community in North America to reaffirm the bond between the US and Israel.
If anything, the latest “Arab Spring” has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the core of the problems in the Middle East does not reside within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More specifically, it is not about settlements or Jerusalem. However, Mitchell’s naïveté was too entrenched in his success of Northern Ireland, which prevented him from seeing the limitations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Again, this is the reason why he kept advocating for 100% construction freeze in Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank as a prerequisite for peace talks. Such freeze is impossible for any Israeli government and had never previously been viewed by Palestinian leaders as a prerequisite. Abbas himself acknowledged it in a recent interview, where he slammed President Obama for pushing him to follow this course and now makes him look foolish.
While the Irish certainly have an identity connection to the land, it is not talismanic. The Irish people do not see Dublin as a divinely chosen conduit to God. Jerusalem, however, is the single most important place for all Jews, and, though unnamed in the Koran, has become the third most holy place for Muslims. Understanding the Jewish and Irish perceptions of their own ethnicities is critical to understanding the outcomes in these two arenas: Ethnic perceptions allowed success in Northern Ireland and virtually ensured failure in the Middle East.
I agree that Mitchell drew too close a comparison between the Israeli Arab conflict and Northern Ireland. But I also predicted that would happen on the day that Mitchell was appointed. In fact, it was already in the cards by then. Others were drawing the same comparisons.
But I don't believe that it was Mitchell who decided to press for the 'full settlement freeze including Jerusalem.' Mitchell has been around - and been around this region - for too long to believe that would ever have a chance of working, especially with a Right wing government in power in Israel. Moreover, I don't believe that Mitchell who kept clinging to the freeze idea nor that he resigned because Obama refused to present a Middle East 'peace plan' in Thursday's address (Mitchell's resignation letter is dated April 6).
Harry Truman famously kept a sign on his desk in the White House. That sign said, 'the buck stops here.' Truman knew who takes credit when things go right and who gets the blame when things go wrong.
In December, responding to a piece that Elliott Abrams wrote calling for Mitchell to be fired, I wrote:
I disagree. It's not that I'm enamored of Mitchell - I'm not. But I don't believe that Mitchell is the problem.
The problem is the Obami's approach - an approach that has assumed that Israel has only to give and the 'Palestinians' only to receive. The problem is that when the President was on shaky ground with Israeli Jews before he ever took office, he compounded the problem by starting his administration with a splashy appeal to the Muslim world - an appeal that has gone unanswered.
I don't believe peace is possible here right now - except for the relative quiet maintained by the status quo. The 'Palestinians' have yet to signal that there is a single concession they are willing to make.
I believe that the Obami should fold up shop, give the parties the White House's phone number and tell them to call when they're ready to talk. Just like Bush I, except this time with the onus on the 'Palestinians' - who were offered everything and gave nothing in return - and not on Israel. I don't expect Obama to do that. After all, there's a 'fierce moral urgency' to establishing a 'Palestinian state' during his first (and hopefully last) term. So I guess we'll have two more years of ups and downs in which nothing is accomplished, whether Mitchell keeps his position or whether it goes to Dennis Ross or someone else.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who pushed for the 'settlement freeze.' If the President doesn't like the policy, he's the man in charge, and it's his job to change it. As much as George Mitchell was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'm not sure anyone else would have been any more successful, particularly with an impatient ideologue at the top leading the charge.
President Obama's Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell resigned on Friday, after making no discernible progress in more than two years of 'peace talks.' What happened? Here's an analysis from someone who gets it. His name is Tawfik Hamid, and when you see his background at the end, you will understand why he gets it.
Approaching the Arab-Israeli conflict from the perspective that it is about land, so that giving more land to the Palestinians will solve the problem, is a failed endeavor.
Israel has already given Egypt the whole of the Sinai, and got nothing in return except a cold peace and rising anti-Semitism in the country. Similarly the disengagement from Gaza did not magically lead to a decline in the wave of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world.
Pro-Palestinian Muslim demonstrators across the world repeatedly use the chant “Khyber Khyber Ya Yahood... Gaish Muhammad Sawfa Yaood,” which reminds the Jews that the army of Muhammad is coming back for a repeat of what was done to the Jewish Khyber tribe.
According to authentic Islamic history books, the Islamic army, led by Muhammad, annihilated the Jewish tribe of Khyber, raping its women and killing all its men.
Such barbaric statements against the Jews have been used by many in the Muslim world, and even inside the US and Europe. Sadly the chant was also used on Friday by thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
...
Until US envoys to the Middle East realize that the problem in the eyes of the Palestinians and their supporters is not the borders of Israel but the very existence of the country, all future missions will similarly fail. Solving the Arab-Israeli conflict must be done initially at the theological rather than the political level, as the former is impeding the latter.
It is unfair to ask Israel to trust those who shamefully advocate the killing of Jews, and claim that Islamic annihilation of the Jews by an Islamic army is a model that must be emulated today.
The problem is not only in the existence of violent teachings in historical Islamic texts, but also in the dangerous desire of many Islamists and violent Islamic scholars to revive such violence in modern times. Violent texts exist in other religions as well, but we do not generally see such destructive desire to use the texts to justify killing others, and we rarely hear about modern scholars of other faiths who advocate using such texts literally.
Read the whole thing - he's spot on. And why does he get it?
The writer is an Islamic thinker and reformer, and a one-time Islamic extremist from Egypt. He was a member of the terrorist organization JI with Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who later became the second-in-command of al-Qaida. He is currently a senior fellow and chairman of the study of Islamic radicalism at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. www.tawfikhamid.com
Ignoring problems doesn't usually make them go away. And pretending that there's no religious dimension to the Arab-Israeli dispute because religious conflicts aren't solvable isn't going to make the conflict solvable.
Report: Obama speech won't include Israel and 'Palestinians'
Along with my missing posts from May 12, I am missing some posts from May 11. One of the missing posts is entitled "Obama to give major Middle East address... without Israel and the 'Palestinians'?" Saturday's Wall Street Journal reports the same thing: That Obama's major speech about the Middle East - which is now scheduled for Thursday - will not include any new initiatives regarding Israel and the 'Palestinians.' And the resignation on Friday of George Mitchell - Obama's first appointee after his inauguration - would also seem to confirm it.
In his letter of resignation, Mr. Mitchell gave no reason for stepping down, other than saying he hadn't intended to serve in this post for more than two years.
In a statement, Mr. Obama praised his "tireless work" toward a resolution of the conflict and a "proud legacy of public service."
"As a nation, we remain committed to peace in the Middle East and to building on George's hard work and progress toward achieving this goal," Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Obama's speech on Thursday won't include an extensive section on negotiations, and the president doesn't intend the address as a launching pad for a new round of talks, a senior administration official said.
There had been speculation that the White House would try to capitalize on the democratic uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa to try and jumpstart the Israeli-Palestinian talks, which have been moribund since September.
Rather, the speech will focus on the Arab Spring uprisings and will put the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in context of the movement, said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
Mr. Carney, describing the address as "fairly sweeping and comprehensive," said the president would call on governments in the region to respond to demands for a peaceful dialogue.
...
"The basic reality is you have a nonexistent peace process," said Aaron Miller, a former Middle East negotiator now at the Wilson Center, a think tank. "Why would you require the services of a very talented, credible negotiator?"
Heh.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, who meets with Obama at the White House this coming Friday, had praise for Mitchell.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke with newly resigned US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell and thanked him for his efforts to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the PMO said in a statement released on Saturday.
Netanyahu told Mitchell he was sorry to hear of his resignation. The prime minister also expressed sorrow at what he called the Palestinian refusal to come to the negotiating table.
He blamed the Palestinian Authority's setting of preconditions for torpedoing the peace talks which Mitchell worked to promote.
Netanyahu expressed to Mitchell his disappointment in the failure of peace talks and the Palestinian Authority's eventual reconciliation with Hamas.
Elliott Abrams says it's time for change in the Middle East. Specifically, he says that it's time for a change in the President's Special Envoy to the Middle East.
In May 2010, Senator Mitchell explained that a year of frustration and failure had not daunted him. He told a reporter, “You can’t take the first ‘no.’ I had 700 days of ‘no’ in Northern Ireland, and one ‘yes.’” By my calculation, on Christmas Day, the 700 days will be up, and perhaps Mitchell will acknowledge that it’s time for a change.
Even reporters long ago became tired of Mitchell’s Northern Ireland analogies, for that situation is as similar to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as it is to, say, Sri Lanka. Sure, there are parties, there are mediators, there are negotiating rules such as “don’t lie” and “keep your word” and “prevent outside spoilers from ruining everything.” But at bottom, the situations are different. By the mid-1990s, IRA and Unionist leaders were ready for a deal, but some mediator needed to bring these parties — strangers and enemies to each other — together. By contrast, the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators know each other well and have met scores of times since the Oslo talks began 20 years ago. They’ve attended each other’s family weddings and birthdays and anniversaries, and any American who meets them sees immediately their easy camaraderie. They don’t need us to bring them together, for the problem isn’t getting talks started. It is that their views of how to solve the conflict are different, and the most one side believes it can offer is less than the least the other thinks it can accept.
One of the lessons Mitchell should have learned is that when two parties have negotiated and are basically ready to go at it again, preconditions are poison. They are likely to prevent even a start to negotiations. Yet the very first thing he did in the Middle East was to impose the precondition that all Israeli construction, in Jerusalem as well as in West Bank settlements, be frozen. This precondition had never been raised before — not by Egypt or Jordan, and not by the Palestinians — and it was immediately obvious that Netanyahu would reject it. And that he did. But by raising it, Mitchell made it impossible for Abbas and his team to get to the table: How could they let Mitchell be more Palestinian than the Palestinians? How could they compromise on construction when the Americans were being adamant?
As we approach the second 700 days, it is fair to ask the president for a rethink of this failing approach.
I disagree. It's not that I'm enamored of Mitchell - I'm not. But I don't believe that Mitchell is the problem.
The problem is the Obami's approach - an approach that has assumed that Israel has only to give and the 'Palestinians' only to receive. The problem is that when the President was on shaky ground with Israeli Jews before he ever took office, he compounded the problem by starting his administration with a splashy appeal to the Muslim world - an appeal that has gone unanswered.
I don't believe peace is possible here right now - except for the relative quiet maintained by the status quo. The 'Palestinians' have yet to signal that there is a single concession they are willing to make.
I believe that the Obami should fold up shop, give the parties the White House's phone number and tell them to call when they're ready to talk. Just like Bush I, except this time with the onus on the 'Palestinians' - who were offered everything and gave nothing in return - and not on Israel. I don't expect Obama to do that. After all, there's a 'fierce moral urgency' to establishing a 'Palestinian state' during his first (and hopefully last) term. So I guess we'll have two more years of ups and downs in which nothing is accomplished, whether Mitchell keeps his position or whether it goes to Dennis Ross or someone else.
Alon Ben Meir argues that former Congressman Bob Wexler (D-Fl) should be made Middle East Special Envoy .
TO BEGIN with, Wexler enjoys the confidence of President Barack Obama, as the two worked closely throughout Obama’s campaign for the presidency. Moreover, Wexler and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton respect each other and appreciate the strength that each enjoys. Together, they could form a formidable team, particularly because Wexler appreciates the importance of what Clinton brings to the table and the importance of her positive standing in the eyes of both Israelis and Palestinians, contrary to George Mitchell and Dennis Ross, who are now tainted.
Wexler could bring new dynamism to the negotiations. He is creative, forthright and would not fall for the old political narratives that have stifled negotiations in the past – for example: how to deal with Israel’s real security concerns, or how to mitigate the Palestinians’ position on the right of return. His outspokenness and candor will serve his mission specifically because the conflict has been overshadowed by misperception and selfrighteousness. Wexler will be able to sort out the real and the misconceived, and disabuse both sides of the notion that the other side does not want to or cannot deliver peace. If he is given a clear mandate to advance ideas of his own, and with the support of and regular input by Clinton, Wexler stands a much better chance of achieving what has eluded his predecessors.
Wexler would likely welcome the opportunity not only because he wants to serve his president, but also because he believes that peace is in the best interest of both the US and Israel, and that the time is now.
There is deep mutual trust between Obama and Wexler, and although Wexler would oblige the president and gladly assume any mission he is assigned, he has a special affinity for Israel and compassion for the Palestinians, and would leave no stone unturned to achieve peace that ensures Israel’s security and dignity and independence for the Palestinians.
Unlike Mitchell, Wexler is far more in tune with the American Jewish community. For obvious reasons, American Jews generally support the policies of the Israeli government, and refrain from publicly criticizing Israel, preferring to iron out their differences quietly. As a leader who fully appreciates the importance of this relationship, Wexler will be able to use his in-depth knowledge of all sides – American Jews, Congress and Israel – to engender a cohesive approach to which they can comfortably subscribe.
I didn't like Mitchell from Day One, but this would be a disaster. Wexler has NO experience in peacemaking, is not well-liked here, and would probably spend his time bending over backward so that he is not seen as pro-Israel. Overall, a poor choice.
But if Wexler asked to be considered for this post, that's a good sign. Wexler left Congress about a year ago to head up a think tank run by J Street. If he's thinking of leaving here already, that could mean that the think tank, or maybe J Street itself, is falling apart. And that would be wonderful news.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
