Last update - 19:52 24/01/2010
HAARETZ.com
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the U.S. special Mideast envoy on Sunday that his people were committed to reaching a peace agreement based on clear negotiations and a complete cessation of Israeli activity in West Bnk settlements, according to the PA leader's aides.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said following the president's talks with envoy George Mitchell that the Palestinians were intent on continued cooperation with the Obama administration regarding Midrast peace efforts.
Erekat said that the Palestinians were making every efforts to see President Barack Obama's vision for a peace agreement brought into fruition.He cast blame on Israel for the delay in progress thus far, and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to abandon any precondition for a renewal of negotiations.
Jordanian King Abdullah II, meanwhile, urged Mitchell to intensify efforts to achieve the "needed progress" in relaunching meaningful peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Mitchell briefed the Jordanian head of state on the outcome of his talks over the past two days with Netanyahu and Abbas.
"The monarch stressed the need for continuing U.S. efforts to ensure a resumption of effective negotiations with a view to accomplishing the two-state solution and ensuring that the needed progress is made in the peace process," according to a royal court statement said.
Mitchell and Abdullah discussed "how to surmount the obstacles facing ongoing efforts to ensure the resumption of the Palestinian- Israeli negotiations in accordance with clear criteria and references and within a definite timetable", the statement added.
Abdullah also urged the U.S. to continue its support for the
Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas.
Mitchell separate meetings with Netanyahu and Abbas on Sunday, despite the appearance that his efforts to restart talks between the two sides have failed once again.
Top U.S. officials told Haaretz on Saturday that they had low expectations of any major developments. "No breakthrough is expected on the resumption of the negotiations during this visit," a source said. (Good! Now go back to Washington and stop flying back and forth to the Middle East until you have been given a reason to think Abbas wants to discuss/offer peace to Israel! BeeSting)
The senior U.S. officials said they were still working on a formula that could restart talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. They say Mitchell would not be carrying a letter of assurances to Israel and the Palestinians.
"We are frustrated but not disheartened," a senior official said. "No breakthrough is expected but we are continuing with our efforts. There are still things we have not tried."
The Americans said Mitchell would continue in his efforts and did not plan to resign.
On the Israeli side, too, officials have low expectations. Netanyahu stressed to Mitchell during their meeting Thursday that the prime minister would commit to a series of goodwill gestures but would not carry them out unless the Palestinians announce that they are returning to the negotiating table.
"The key to the resumption of talks is not with us but with the Palestinians," said a senior Israeli official familiar with Mitchell's recent talks
Showing posts with label George Mitchell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Mitchell. Show all posts
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Israeli leadership must end ongoing retreat in face of Obama pressure
Middle East and Terrorism
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Mitchell's wake-up call.
The threat issued by Special Presidential Envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to withhold US loan guarantees, in order to extract excessive concessions from Israel, constitutes a wake-up call for wishful-thinkers..
Senator Mitchell's January 7, 2010 interview with PBS' Charlie Rose refutes the notion that the Obama Administration will accept anything but full Israeli compliance with
Obama's confidant, George Mitchell, known for his deliberate style, made clear that submission to pressure is not rewarded but punishable by further pressure. That is certainly the case with a White House run by Rahm Emanuel, who is "the meanest shark in town."
Emanuel and President Obama, his Chicago-politics pal, were elated when Prime Minister Netanyahu rushed on June 14, 2009 to
Leveraging their initial success, they now employ the threat of withholding loan guarantees and intensify the pressure on
Obama's Liberal power-base is unhappy with legislative compromises concluded with Blue Dog Democrats. Republicans are energized by Obama's difficulties and the 30% bloc of Independents, which accorded Obama the 2008 victory, is turning its back on Obama in 2010. Since assuming power in January, 2009, Obama has received slaps in the face from
Israel
In 1992, at the height of the Shamir-Bush battle over loan guarantees, I was told by then Majority Leader, Senator George Mitchell: "Doesn't Israel know that the US is not a monarchy, that the president is not omnipotent and that the Legislature is equal in power to the Executive?!"
In 2010,
Senator Mitchell's PBS interview reflects Obama's determination to dictate to the Jewish State a full withdrawal to the 1949 and 1967 ceasefire lines, the uprooting of Jewish communities in the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria, the repartitioning of Jerusalem, the negotiation of the "claim of return" by 1948 Arab refugees and the exchange of land.
Such an approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict is a derivative of Obama’s worldview, which highlights the UN as a quarterback of international relations, considers Europe as a role model and Foggy Bottom bureaucracy as luminaries on international relations, burdens the West with partial-blame for international terrorism, regards the Jewish State as part of the exploiting West and the Arabs part of the exploited Third World.
In facing Obama's pressure,
Such steadfastness yielded short-term US-Israel tension. However, it was rapidly transformed into long-term enhanced strategic respect, by American and Middle Eastern leaders, toward the Jewish State.
In 2010, Israeli leaders are endowed with a critical mass – which was not enjoyed by the 1948-1992 leaders - demographically (6 million Jews!), economically, technologically and militarily, bolstered by a formidable infrastructure of support in the
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
US Loan Guarantees Cost US Nothing - Yet Cost Israel Her Sovereignty
By Rob Muchnick, Manigut Yehudit
American Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell stated last week that if Israel doesn’t advance the peace process, “[the United States] can withhold support on loan guarantees to Israel”. Manhigut Yehudit applauds Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz for telling Mitchell that “We don’t have to use those guarantees; we are doing very well without them” and Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sar for stating that “We will act in accordance with our own interests and not in accordance with external pressures.”
Though US Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman sought to minimize the threat, Mitchell’s statement sheds light on years of attempted American blackmail by which the United States placed financial pressure on Israel to gain the Jewish state’s surrender to and continuation of the ongoing false peace process.
In conjunction with the loan guarantees are the roughly 2.7 billion dollars that Israel receives annually from the United States. Moshe Feiglin, leader of the Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) faction of the ruling Likud party, has been clear for years regarding US aid - that all US aid to Israel should be ended. The loan guarantees and the financial aid have come at a high price to Israel. By following this fraudulent Oslo “peace” process, Israel has suffered almost 2,000 dead and over 10,000 maimed at the hands of her so-called Arab “peace partner”.
Moreover, since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 (by which Israel willingly offered to give away the Land where 93% of the places mentioned in the Jewish Bible are located), an ever increasing portion of world opinion (including Jewish opinion) questions whether justice is on Israel’s side. This “peace process” has therefore had a deleterious effect vis-à-vis anti-Semitism as well as strengthening terrorism and eroding Israel’s military security.
American aid to Israel comes at a heavy price with onerous strings attached. Seventy-five percent of all monies must be spent in the US thus making it a make-work program for America’s defense industry. These conditions have cost Israel 100,000 manufacturing jobs and Israel has been prevented from using its technology for the development of its own economy. The ending of American aid would solve Israel’s unemployment crisis and free Israel to reap a tremendous profit in arms sales that would more than offset any benefits of American largesse. Currently, Israel upgrades virtually all of the military equipment that it receives from the US and yet the American companies own the technology and are the only ones able to profit. Former Israeli Minister of Economic Affairs Ron Dermer publicly confirmed these assertions at the 2006 AIPAC Conference in response to a question from Manhigut Yehudit’s US Director, Rob Muchnick.
Israeli leaders typically state that they must continue the Oslo Process or else the financial spigot from the US will be shut, even though they know that the premise is false. As a case in point, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated in 2005 that if Israel did not implement the “Disengagement from Gaza”, the United States would make Israel “do something worse”. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued this trend by freezing Jewish construction in all parts of the Land of Israel liberated from the Arabs in 1967. When asked at the aforementioned AIPAC conference for his opinion as to why Israel continues to take American aid, Dermer - now a senior advisor to Netanyahu - responded that this “was a political decision made by each Prime Minister”.
Manhigut Yehudit does not blame America for attempting to co-opt Israel. The Jewish state must stand on its own feet and be led only by its devotion to its heritage, its Land, and its Creator.
This duplicity on the part of Israel’s leaders has caused her to give up her sovereignty to such an extent that many people now simply think of her as nothing more than an extraneous 51st state of America.
Rob Muchnick, US Director
NOTE: 3 COMMENTS in Israpundit worth reading:
Monday, January 11, 2010
Yoel Marcus / Obama blowing threatening winds at Israel
By Yoel Marcus, Haaretz Correspondent 
We can deny it all we like, but if it looks like a threat and sounds like a threat, then it's a threat.
U.S. special envoy George Mitchell, who is coming to Israel next week, suggested in an interview with the U.S. public television network PBS that Washington might withhold loan guarantees to Israel.
When this was interpreted as a hint meant to pressure Israel, "clarifications" poured forth from the American capital. Mitchell wasn't threatening, he was only giving a hypothetical response to the interviewer's question about the options for pressure that were available to the administration. The White House itself sent a message to the effect of, "We didn't want to threaten, only to speed up the negotiations."
The precise words and their precise meaning do not matter. The reality is that President Barack Obama is frustrated and that threatening winds are blowing from the White House toward Israel. There is a big gap between Obama's peace speeches and his Nobel Peace Prize on one hand and his inability to produce a tangible achievement on the other. And while he speaks about peace and reconciliation, he himself is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan as their fallen comrades' coffins continue to arrive back in the U.S. The question is whether they knew what they gave their lives for.
Recent talk about the Obama administration being "tired" of Israel is undoubtedly an expression of frustration with the fact that the quarter from which the Americans had expected the most has so far yielded nothing.
The threat of withholding loan guarantees recalls the commander of the British forces during the British Mandate, General Evelyn Hugh Barker, who ordered the Jews punished by "striking at their pockets." This approach did not keep the organized Jewish community from driving out the British and founding an independent state. Come what may, one thing is clear - U.S. military aid and its support of Israel in the UN Security Council will not be impaired under any circumstances.
In light of the Iranian threat we should remember how important it is to Obama to cooperate with the moderate Muslim states and to see a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to prevent another war from breaking out in the region.
Our grumbling that Obama is pro-Arab is not fair. Perhaps he doesn't admire us like some of his predecessors, but his policy does not deviate by one millimeter from theirs. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Succeeding administrations have consistently adhered to the demand for a return to the 1967 borders, with minor border adjustments related to security. They have also consistently objected to the settlements and have warned us many a time that they would not finance any settlement evacuations.
Mitchell is coming to the region to take the negotiations out of the freezer. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have made a commitment to a peace process based on two states for two peoples, but so far he has done nothing except to declare a freeze in construction in the settlements for 10 months and not a single day beyond. What that means exactly is not clear. It's neither an evacuation nor proof that the government wants and is capable of evacuating tens of thousands of settlers. As in "Saving Private Ryan," Washington, Cairo and Amman are working together to save Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is in deep now with his construction of a separation fence between his country and the Gaza Strip, which is deeply damaging to the status and power of Hamas. At a time like this Israel cannot make do with "freezing construction for 10 months." It sounds like a joke.
Mitchell's visit is extremely important for renewing the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. He may bring with him a plan that Israel will not be able to say no to without damaging American interests. According to one knowledgeable source Jerusalem is preparing efforts to resume the talks and understands that the government is bound to them. After all, it was Netanyahu's government that drafted the two-states-for-two-peoples promissory note.
In the current domestic political situation Netanyahu could obtain the broadest parliamentary support in Israel's history - almost 80 Knesset members will support beginning vigorous negotiations aimed at reaching a settlement and drawing permanent borders, with the active involvement and assistance of the United States.
Enough already with the shticks and the tricks, it's time to show leadership.
We can deny it all we like, but if it looks like a threat and sounds like a threat, then it's a threat.
U.S. special envoy George Mitchell, who is coming to Israel next week, suggested in an interview with the U.S. public television network PBS that Washington might withhold loan guarantees to Israel.
When this was interpreted as a hint meant to pressure Israel, "clarifications" poured forth from the American capital. Mitchell wasn't threatening, he was only giving a hypothetical response to the interviewer's question about the options for pressure that were available to the administration. The White House itself sent a message to the effect of, "We didn't want to threaten, only to speed up the negotiations."
The precise words and their precise meaning do not matter. The reality is that President Barack Obama is frustrated and that threatening winds are blowing from the White House toward Israel. There is a big gap between Obama's peace speeches and his Nobel Peace Prize on one hand and his inability to produce a tangible achievement on the other. And while he speaks about peace and reconciliation, he himself is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan as their fallen comrades' coffins continue to arrive back in the U.S. The question is whether they knew what they gave their lives for.
Recent talk about the Obama administration being "tired" of Israel is undoubtedly an expression of frustration with the fact that the quarter from which the Americans had expected the most has so far yielded nothing.
The threat of withholding loan guarantees recalls the commander of the British forces during the British Mandate, General Evelyn Hugh Barker, who ordered the Jews punished by "striking at their pockets." This approach did not keep the organized Jewish community from driving out the British and founding an independent state. Come what may, one thing is clear - U.S. military aid and its support of Israel in the UN Security Council will not be impaired under any circumstances.
In light of the Iranian threat we should remember how important it is to Obama to cooperate with the moderate Muslim states and to see a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to prevent another war from breaking out in the region.
Our grumbling that Obama is pro-Arab is not fair. Perhaps he doesn't admire us like some of his predecessors, but his policy does not deviate by one millimeter from theirs. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Succeeding administrations have consistently adhered to the demand for a return to the 1967 borders, with minor border adjustments related to security. They have also consistently objected to the settlements and have warned us many a time that they would not finance any settlement evacuations.
Mitchell is coming to the region to take the negotiations out of the freezer. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have made a commitment to a peace process based on two states for two peoples, but so far he has done nothing except to declare a freeze in construction in the settlements for 10 months and not a single day beyond. What that means exactly is not clear. It's neither an evacuation nor proof that the government wants and is capable of evacuating tens of thousands of settlers. As in "Saving Private Ryan," Washington, Cairo and Amman are working together to save Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is in deep now with his construction of a separation fence between his country and the Gaza Strip, which is deeply damaging to the status and power of Hamas. At a time like this Israel cannot make do with "freezing construction for 10 months." It sounds like a joke.
Mitchell's visit is extremely important for renewing the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. He may bring with him a plan that Israel will not be able to say no to without damaging American interests. According to one knowledgeable source Jerusalem is preparing efforts to resume the talks and understands that the government is bound to them. After all, it was Netanyahu's government that drafted the two-states-for-two-peoples promissory note.
In the current domestic political situation Netanyahu could obtain the broadest parliamentary support in Israel's history - almost 80 Knesset members will support beginning vigorous negotiations aimed at reaching a settlement and drawing permanent borders, with the active involvement and assistance of the United States.
Enough already with the shticks and the tricks, it's time to show leadership.
State Dept.: U.S. not planning to withhold Israel loan guarantees
By Natasha Mozgavaya, Haaretz Correspondent
The U.S. State Department on Monday reiterated that special Mideast envoy George Mitchell's suggestion that Washington could withhold loan guarantees if Israel continues to delay the peace process was merely a fact of "historical context."
"I know that Senator Mitchell's interview with Charlie Rose last week caused some angst in various quarters perhaps in Israel. Just to clarify this, he wasn't signaling any, you know, particular course of action," Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley said.
Mitchell, when asked in a television interview last week what sort of pressure could be applied to Israel, replied that "under American law, the United States can withhold support on loan guarantees to Israel."
Mitchell told PBS interviewer Charlie Rose that George W. Bush's administration had done so in the past. But he quickly added that he preferred persuasion to sanctions.
"Mitchell was simply asked a question with an historical context. You know, are there sticks that are available? And I think he mentioned that this is a step that the United States has taken in the past," Crowley said Monday.
"He wasn't signaling that this is something that we're forecasting in the future. You know, but it is - it obviously is something that we have in our toolbox. It's not that we're out, you know, wielding that particular tool at this particular time."
"The reason why Senator Mitchell is in the region or in Europe this week and he will meet with Israeli officials while he's in Europe - have other meetings as we go forward - is expressly to continue to push, you know, the parties and all who are supporting this process, to get the negotiation restarted as quickly as possible where we can," added Crowley. "... Put all the issues on the table and see if we can, you know, move towards a comprehensive peace in the Middle East."
"So this was simply, you know, George Mitchell commenting on a matter of history," he concluded."
Mitchell on Monday arrived in Paris to begin a week of talks with European officials on restarting the Middle East peace negotiations
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Senators McCain, Lieberman downplay Mitchell's threat
Ynetnews.com
Roni Sofer
Roni Sofer
| Published: | 01.10.10, 19:33 / Israel News |
During Jerusalem press conference, senator who lost to Obama expresses objection to use of aid freeze as threat. Lieberman: Attempt of this kind won't pass in Congress.
| Mitchell can threaten Jerusalem, but there will be others ready to defend Israel in Washington: Four senior US senators visiting Israel said Sunday that they oppose attempts to apply pressure on Israel by freezing aid. The senators, including former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, emphasized that they would not allow the US government to authorize such a proposal.
During a press conference at Jerusalem's David Citadel Hotel, at which senators Joe Lieberman, John Thune and John Barrasso were also present, McCain said that he expects the White House to confirm soon that this is not its policy. Lieberman said that any attempt to force Israel to the negotiations table by withholding aid would not pass in Congress. He added that he did not think it would come to this. Lieberman, who was Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2000 and afterwards supported McCain for president, is now an independent senator though still part of the Democratic faction in the Senate. The four senators spoke following the storm caused by an apparent threat from US special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to freeze loan guarantees to Israel if it failed to make progress in the peace process with the Palestinians. During an interview with the PBS network, Mitchell asserted that the US would use both carrots and sticks against the two sides, noting that US law allowed such a freeze. Later, a senior Washington figure told Ynet that no threat was intended, in an attempt to moderate Mitchell's remarks. The apparent threat was discussed in the cabinet's weekly meeting on Sunday, during which Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) asserted, "We don't have to use those guarantees. We are doing very well without them." Education Minister Gideon Saar (Likud) added, "Israel will act in accordance with its interests." Earlier, Defense Minister Ehud Barak (Labor) met with the four senators and noted that Hezbollah continues to rearm. Lebanon carries full responsibility for any rockets fired from its territory, he said, adding that Israel would not go after individual terrorists. He also talked about the need to launch negotiations with the Palestinians, and about Iran. |
PMO: The PA hinders peace process, not the Israeli gov't
US President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy George 
Photo: AP
Israel has taken significant steps to propel the peace process forward, while the Palestinian Authority refuses to renew peace talks, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office asserted in a statement released Saturday night.
"It is the Palestinian Authority that needs to change its ways - certainly not the Israeli
The statement came in response to remarks made by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, suggesting that the US could withdraw guarantees given to Israel in the event that peace talks with the Palestinians remained at an impasse.
When asked by Charlie Rose on PBS: "You sit there and you say to Israel, look, if you don't do this, what?", Mitchell replied: "Under American law, the United States can withhold support on loan guarantees to Israel... There are others [options], and you have to keep open whatever options. But our view is that we think the way to approach this is to try to persuade the parties what is in their self-interest."
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Mitchell said he believed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians could be concluded within two years - provided that they resumed in the near future.
"We think that the negotiation should last no more than two years, once begun we think it can be done within that period of time. We hope the parties agree. Personally I think it can be done in a shorter period of time," Mitchell said. He added that the US was working to persuade both Israel and the Palestinians to agree to conditions which were in their best interests.
The envoy said he intends to return to the region in the coming days, and hopes for quick development on the political, security and economic fronts.
On Thursday, Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren told The Jerusalem Post that "In the past, attempts to impose time frameworks have not proved either realizable or helpful."
Mitchell, however, expressed hope that a Palestinian state would be able to properly function from the moment it is established.
He added that parallel to the Palestinian channel, Israel must advance negotiations with Syria.
In related news, while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh on Friday urged the Israelis and Palestinians to begin talks which would resolve the border issue, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat was not optimistic about this latest take on the peace process.
"You cannot have discussions on borders while the territory you want to set up your state on is being eaten up by the settlements," Erekat said.
"We are awaiting the arrival of [US Mideast envoy] Sen. Mitchell, and we hope the US administration will go on the path of the end game. What we need are decisions now on the end game, on the borders," he said.
Hilary Leila Krieger and AP contributed to this report.
Jerusalem Post.com
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It would be a Moment For The Ages.
Netanyahu should rise and say, “Obama has given us a choice between being annihilated or being independent, and we choose the latter. We sincerely thank the American people for their longtime generosity, but the time has arrived for them to keep their money and for us to gain our freedom. That new found freedom will enable Israelis to confront the existential threat that imperils our nation, rather than heeding the behest of our financial benefactor and passively waiting to be murdered en masse.”
Whether the Israeli public possesses the emotional stability to cut the umbilical cord is another question.
I could see Livni careening across the room like Fred Sanford, clutching her heart and getting the vapors.
Comment by ayn reagan — January 13, 2010 @ 1:53 pm
As the US looses power and influence around the world, she also looses influence over Israeli politics. Whatever the USA had to offer Israel in the past is not only becoming increasingly less valuable, but the Obama administration can’t be trusted to deliver on anything. Couple that with Israel’s increasing self sufficiency and the gap between the US and Israel will continue to widen. Once the O team realizes they can no longer manipulate Israel politics from the inside as the US has in the past, they will move outside and openly join in with the UN and other nations to force the M.E. “process” forward, regardless of the dangers to Israel.
Comment by RandyTexas — January 13, 2010 @ 3:16 pm
Randy, that’s the bottom line. He is in my mind anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.
He prefers to sleep with the devils of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and the Palestinians.
Israel needs to take a step back and ignore the present administrative with hope (all of us) that the next two elections will rid ourselves of these left leaning liberals. (So Help Us G-d).
Comment by rongrand — January 13, 2010 @ 3:39 pm