Today, George Mitchell resigned as Obama administration special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. It’s not exactly a day to “give thanks for what the Lord hath made,” to upend Scripture a bit. More like the proverbial chickens of an off-kilter U.S. policy coming home too roost.
Increasingly over the past few months and even moreso in the past few weeks, the Arab peoples, including the Palestinians, have taken matters into their own hands given Israeli obduracy and U.S. irrelevance.
Mitchell had to have seen the handwriting on the wall. Being an honorable man, he didn’t want to continue presiding over a sham policy. The wonder is that he remained in his position as long as he did.
Each party said nice things about the man and blamed the other for failure of his efforts. Israel’s attempt to blame the Palestinians for refusing to negotiate, while the former offered nothing over which to negotiate, was laughable.
I’d like to think (though I have no way of knowing) he lobbied for our joining the effort on behalf of Palestinian statehood which is gathering steam for the UN in September. Perhaps he couldn’t be heard within the administration. Likely, this will leave the hardcore pro-Israel figures like Dennis Ross increasingly in control of policy. That remains to be seen, though one might have reasonable fears this might be the outcome. Ross is a long-time policy infighter who often disagreed with Mitchell’s more balanced approach. When there is an institutional/policy vacuum it is people like Ross who rush to fill it.
Mitchell leaves, of course at an awkward time, just before a major Obama Middle East address and White House meeting with Netanyahu. The effect is as if to say the emperor, that is U.S. Mideast policy, has no clothes. One wonders just what Obama will say in this speech and whether the speech will be little more than a distraction from just how ineffectual our policy is and has been.
Besides the problems with a moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace track, the increasing murderousness of the Assad assault on his own Syrian citizens, which has left 600 dead at the hands of brutal security forces, and which the U.S. has observed from the sidelines, leave us increasingly out of reach and out of touch.
US irrelevance? Nah.
the Palestinians, with their reconciliation deal, are now committed to NOT negotiating for at least a year and the Israelis simply don’t think that Hamas wants to make any deal that the Israelis are interested in making, and the Israelis under Netanyahu aren’t all that interested anyway.
Not precisely right. The INTERIM GOVERNMENT will not address peace negotiations (as it shouldn’t since it won’t be elected). But in the interim, Fatah can certainly pursue such negotiations with Israel if Hamas agrees (& it did so as part of the last unity deal). Then when there IS an elected gov’t it can finalize any deal that may be agreed to.
It’s true that the Israelis can negotiate with whomever is also is true that there can’t be any negotiations with any Palestinian Authority government.
The Israelis ARE negotiating with Hamas and have agreements in place about some stuff with Fatah, but I’m sure that you understand that no one is going to try to work or really can work out anything comprehensive and serious as long as there’s no one really authorized to make a deal.
The reconciliation deal is a full-stop block to doing a deal.
I don’t understand yr first sentence.
The Israelis are NOT negotiating with Hamas except through 3rd party talks which are stalled & inactive as far as I know. What I know is that Israel will use any excuse NOT to work out a deal & if it’s convenient to claim that it has no partner during the interim gov’t’s rule, it will do so. If there was a pragmatic Israeli gov’t in place that wanted peace it would not use excuses & would negotiate w. anyone delegated by the Palestinians (that is, Fatah & Hamas) to represent them during this period in such talks.
Right, Israel PM should have called The Palestinians Gov. to sit down and initiate peace talks as soon as the Palestinian declared a unified Gov.
that first sentence WAS a muddle. sorry.
but Richard, Israel negotiates indirectly with Hamas at Hamas’ insistence.
the negotiations are not inactive at all and reports from last week suggested that they might soon prove fruitful.
I don’t understand why you think that Israel must negotiate with just anyone. Why would it be a good idea to deal with folks that can neither promise nor deliver anything?
That’s not usual because it’s disadvantageous.
Either the Palestinians send a delegation with real authority or the Israelis have nothing to gain.
Informal talks are fine but they’re not really negotiations.
Yes, & reports virtually every wk for the past 5 yrs have suggested they might be fruitful. The only way such reports will indeed prove fruitful is if Egypt’s new mediation breaks a logjam & this will be much more likely due to Egypt’s intervention.
Because that’s what a country does if it truly wants peace. If it doesn’t it finds a myriad of excuses not to as Israel has done & which you seem to endorse. Who says Fatah or the PLO cannot deliver anything if Hamas endorses their participation in such talks (on condition of a national referendum to endorse the results, which were the previous conditions for such negotiation)?
Just contradicted yrself. You said Israel was engaged in “real negotiations” with Hamas, which portended a real agreement, while in this case the negotiations would somehow be a sham because they’re not real. Sorry, but the negotiations in the 2nd instance would be much more transparent & authoritative because they could be direct bilateral negotiations (not 3rd party w. a mediator as is happening w. Hamas regarding Shalit) & there would be agreement fr. Hamas & Fatah on how to ratify any agreement reached.
A) countries don’t negotiate with just anybody because they want peace. They don’t negotiate without thinking that it’s useful.
your statement simply isn’t correct.
B) and there’s no contradiction. Israel is dickering with Hamas over a prisoner swap and the Hamas reps are both authorized to seek a deal and able to deliver on their end of any bargain struck.
Hamas is not able to negotiate a real peace deal because they’re authorized to speak for anyone but their own party, a minority among the Palestinians.
(and of course even that is assuming the most unlikely idea that Hamas is willing to make a real peace deal and ignoring the fact that any such deal that interests Hamas is
unacceptably disadvantagous to Israel)
I didn’t say that. I said that a country that wants peace negotiates with any party designated by its enemy to do so. I don’t give a crap whether Israel thinks it’s useful to negotiate with the Palestinians. Of course they think it’s not useful, because they don’t want peace on terms Palestinians can or will accept.
You’re repeating yrself. Pls. don’t do so. They’ve been dickering for 5 yrs. & there is no deal in sight. Israel is not dickering w. Hamas. It’s dickering through an intermediary who once was German & is now Egyptian. Neither have proven successful at least in part because Israel refuses to talk directly to Hamas.
“Because that’s what a country does if it truly wants peace”
was there a time in history, in which such negotiations were carried between nations and proven that theory wrong ?
When one side holds an extreme ideology, in order to start negotiating they need to denounce it.
Hamas is unwilling to do so. never was, Just today Hamas PM stated Hamas will never recognize the Israeli right to exist, just today he called to end the Zionist regime in Palestine, and implement the ROR (http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/240/748.html?hp=1&cat=404)
as obama stated “the Palestinians would have to recognize that the Right of Return as they have seen it historically will extinguish the state of Israel as a Jewish state and that is not an option”
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xatt3DmTXHo)
so there is no ground for negotiations, not at this point. not when such statements are coming from Hamas leadership.
can you blame Israeli for thinking that this is not about peace and the 1967 borders, when Hamas PM declares otherwise ?
the previous time in history when negotiations from such opening stands happened, Churchill stated: England has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame and will get war.
At the current state of affairs, this what Israel will get.
So when will we see Israel denouncing its home-grown extremist ideology & should such a denunciation be a Palestinian condition for negotiations??
Bogus. He said as Meshal did that he would not recognize Israel at this point in the negotiaton process. Not that he would never recognize Israel.
I could give a crap about what Obama says about ROR. Really, who cares?
I agree. No grounds for negotiations whatsover given the nature of the murderous Netnayahu regime. Until it renounces violence against Palestine and recognizes an independent Palestine state it simply isn’t a partner.
A zoch in vay, you compare Israel’s situation to England before WWII? More comparisons of Palestinians with Nazis. I’m so glad I put you into moderation.
Mitchell’s resignation letter was actually dated early April, so the “timing” of Mitchell’s leaving was Obama’s option. Obviously, it made no sense to have an outgoing peacemaker present in discussions with Israeli staffers and Bibi in Washington. The NYT reports that Mitchell’s deputy, David Hale, will take over, at least temporarily. Hale came to Mitchell as Deputy Assistant secretary of State for Near East Asia, and quickly rose on Mitchell’s staff to the number-two position. They also built a small but strong staff in Jerusalem. But I agree that his infighting skills are unlikely to match Dennis Ross’s. Thus, Mitchell’s leaving has to be viewed as a serious net loss for peace prospects. Wonder if Obama has found a replacement. Wonder if he is even trolling for one.
Mitchell seems to be a decent man. There was probably not much he could achieve given the current power balance in Israel and in the US administration.
There was nothing he could do while Hamas held power in Gaza. There will be nothing the next envoy can do now that Hamas will shortly hold power in the Arab portions of Judea and Samaria.
Of course, no one but Israel will hold power in Jerusalem.
More likely nothing he could do as long as Likud held power in Israel.
Please don’t show yrself to be any more of a moron than you already are. On what basis do you claim Hamas will take over the West Bank? Your far right Israeli nationalist intuition? Or do you have Palestinian sources inside the Territories who we should know about?
Omigod. I simply can’t believe what an insufferable twit you are. You too are on a very short leash. And I’ll yank your chain as soon as you break the rules again. I predict you aren’t long for the world of this blog.
Richard, your offensive style is disgusting. Who do you think you are?
I think I’m the guy who just moderated yer ass.
You may disagree with his opinions, and believe them to be fundamentally wrong – but you should stop these personal attacks. This has nothing to do with politics – it is a matter of courtesy and “derekh eretz”.
Online posts should emulate the etiquette of face to face communication. Would you call a person, in his face, an “insufferable twit”, or a “moron”? That’s schoolyard talk – definitely not how a grown man should express himself.
Yoni, please, also address your statement to the rest of the commenters on this blog. People here have been extremely offensive towards Richard and other comments in the past. I agree that it’d do this blog a lot of good if people do not attack each other personally.
[USA is pretty obdurate, too.]
My own view, often expressed, is that negotiations are silly and untimely (and will be unavailing in terms of achieving a just and lasting peace) as long as a single settler, settlement, or inch of the wall remain upon occupied territory.
If no power can prevail on Israel to remove them, then matters will continue as they have since 1967, via unilateral imposition.
UNLESS the “nations” can “see the light” and get after Israel to step back from the occupied territories and remain back until a peace treaty creates a right for Israel once again to become present, then there is no hope whatever.
Just imagine what the Holocaust would have been like had Germany NOT attacked every nation in sight and merely conducted its own internal affairs, and the nations had remained content to ignore the Holocaust just as they are today content to ignore this (comparatively milder) Israeli violation of the laws of belligerent occupation.
mitchell is a zionist. he did nothing which was his appointed task. he will receive a bonus for doing well.
re: “…Mitchell’s resignation letter was actually dated early April…” I’m sure Mitchell was shoved out long before April.
“…Likely, this will leave the hardcore pro-Israel figures like Dennis Ross increasingly in control of policy. That remains to be seen, though one might have reasonable fears this might be the outcome…”
There’s “no remains to be seen” — it’s been seen…
— Ross in Israel to jump-start peace talks [January 20, 2011]
JERUSALEM (JTA) — “…Senior White House adviser Dennis Ross arrived in Israel to discuss security arrangements under a possible peace deal with the Palestinians.
Ross and David Hale, deputy to Middle East envoy George Mitchell, arrived in Israel Thursday. They will meet with Israeli officials to discuss maintaining the country’s qualitative military edge in the region under any proposed peace deal, according to a statement issued by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
Ross is making his third visit to Israel in a month. Mitchell was last in Israel in December…”
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/01/20/2742639/ross-in-israel-to-jumpstart-peace-talks
Also, I have a feeling Mitchell was toast long before January. I think his chain was massively yanked after he went on Charlie Rose and made this remark:
“…GEORGE MITCHELL: Under American law, the United States can withhold support on loan guarantees to Israel. President George W. Bush did so…”
I bet that went down like a lead balloon in the pro-Israel Democratic party upper echelon.
I suspect that Mitchell decided to resign now because of Netanyahu’s upcoming “grand address” to the US Congress. It would be awkward to resign afterwards.
Netanyahu failed to talk to his own citizens.
There is nothing he’s going to say in the US that has any meaning.
I love the assumption that peace talks are anything other than a sham and farce. Mitchell and the US are not in good faith, never have been and Israel is interested in real estate, and surrender, not peace.Now if only that other fake peace envoy Tony Blair would have the decency to quit, but decency and Blair do not belong in the same sentence. Cue hypocritical bleating from the EU who subsidize the occupation.
for those of you who malign Mitchell, call him a Zionist, say he deals in bad faith and insist that he meant to do nothing….you’re full of yourselves.