Monday, April 6, 2009
It sure sounds like it: U.S. envoy: Arab peace initiative will be part of Obama policy
The Arab peace initiative will be part of the Obama administration's policy toward the Middle East, the United States special envoy to the region said.
The 2002 initiative offers to normalize relations between the entire Arab region and Israel, in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories including East Jerusalem, the establishment of a Palestinian State and a "just settlement" for Palestinian refugees.
The envoy, George Mitchell, said the U.S. intends to "incorporate" the initiative into its Middle East policy. He made the statement at a meeting with Israeli, Arab American and European senior diplomats and officials in Washington a few weeks ago...
...The Arab representatives were reportedly satisfied with Mitchell's statement, but added that the initiative is a package deal and cannot be modified. Israel has yet to express a formal position on the Arab initiative.
The organizers of the workshop, which began March 17 and lasted three days, were former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and Danny Abraham, a Jewish-American businessman and peace activist. Indyk, who was a consultant for former U.S. president Bill Clinton, is considered a close associate of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The workshop dealt with the U.S. attitude toward Benjamin Netanyahu's new government.
Senior Palestinian sources told Haaretz that the U.S. State Department is preparing a plan to market the Arab initiative to Israelis, and will release a document highlighting the gestures that Arab nations have agreed to take under the initiative...
This post at Soccer Dad's traces some of the twists and turns in Obama's flirtations and denials with respect to the Saudi plan, but it's becoming clearer and clearer all the time that this is the direction the pressure will take.
Whether this is the reality or is a trial balloon being floated by this present administration, it's not good. If it's policy it's more decidedly a bad indicator, whereas if it's a trial balloon it at least suggests an amenable quality. But even if it's a trial balloon it reflects a particularly bad, incomprehensible set of ideas. Oslo II floated by Jimmy Carter II, or something along those lines. More unreflective, insubstantial "process diplomacy."
In honesty and fairness, there is this good news from the admin., reflecting a certain realism, at least apparently so - the decision has been made to proceed with the missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.