Group items tagged

As a state senator in Chicago, Mr. Obama cultivated friendships with Arab-Americans, including Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American scholar and a critic of Israel. Mr. Obama and Mr. Khalidi had many dinners together, friends said, in which they discussed Palestinian issues.

Mr. Obama’s predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, came of age politically with the American-Israeli viewpoint of the Middle East conflict as their primary tutor, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator. While each often expressed concern and empathy for the Palestinians — with Mr. Clinton, in particular, pushing hard for Middle East peace during the last months of his presidency — their early perspectives were shaped more by Israelis and American Jews than by Muslims, Mr. Levy said. “I think that Barack Obama, on this issue as well as many other issues, brings a fresh approach and a fresh background,” Mr. Levy said. “He’s certainly familiar with Israel’s concerns and with the closeness of the Israel-America relationship and with that narrative. But what I think might be different is a familiarity that I think President Obama almost certainly has with where the Palestinian grievance narrative is coming from.”

None of this necessarily means that Mr. Obama will chart a course that is different from his predecessors’. During the campaign he struck a position on Israel that was indistinguishable from those of his rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain, going so far as to say in 2008 that he supported Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. (He later attributed that statement to “poor phrasing in the speech,” telling Fareed Zakaria of CNN that he meant to say he did not want barbed wire running through Jerusalem.)

Washington's Mid-East envoy George Mitchell has said Syria has a "crucial role" in finding a comprehensive peace settlement, during a visit to Damascus.

The comments came as he held talks with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian capital.

"Syria has an integral role to play in reaching comprehensive peace," Mr Mitchell said on Saturday. But Mr Mitchell has assured Lebanon that securing Syrian co-operation will not come at Beirut's expense.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday that Israel could not accept the Obama administration's demand to "completely" halt activity in West Bank settlements. "We have no intention to change the demographic balance in Judea and Samaria," Lieberman said during his talks with the secretary of state in Washington. "Everywhere people are born, people die, and we cannot accept a vision of stopping completely the settlements. We have to keep the natural growth."

Meanwhile, Clinton reiterated that the U.S. viewed a total settlement freeze as "important and essential" step toward achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mitchell has said a key element has been trying to pin down exactly what Israel means by the "natural growth" of settlements that Netanyahu has said he will defend. In principle, Netanyahu says he wants growing families to be able to accommodate their children in the towns that Israelis have built.

Mitchell said preparations to revive negotiations could be could conclude within weeks. "We hope to conclude the discussions in which we are now engaged very soon. To me it's a matter of weeks, not many months," he said.

"The only viable resolution to this conflict is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states," Mitchell said on Wednesday. "As President Obama said last week, America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own."

The U.S. knows that when Israel "says it doesn't accept the two-state solution and doesn't want to freeze settlement expansion, that means it says 'no' to resuming negotiations," Erekat said

Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman held talks on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a US official said

Suleiman, who has not spoken to the media, met Tuesday with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell as well as with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, officials said.

An Egyptian official who declined to be named said Suleiman was in Washington to seek a softer stance on the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, so that it can participate in an internationally-recognized Palestinian unity government.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman late Wednesday reiterated Israel’s objection to a complete settlement freeze as the United States considers allowances that could permit some projects already under way to proceed.

"We want to see a stop to the settlements," Clinton told reporters as she stood next to Lieberman, himself a settler. "We think that is an important and essential part of pursuing the efforts leading to a comprehensive agreement and the creation of a Palestinian next to an Israeli Jewish state that is secure in its borders and future," she said.

Israel did not have "any intention to change the demographic balance" of the West Bank, said Lieberman, head of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, part of Netanyahu's Likud-led coalition government. "But we think that as in any place, babies are born, people get married, some pass away and we cannot accept this vision about an absolutely complete freezing of settlements," said Lieberman. "I think that we must keep the natural growth," he said.

Barak is expected to propose a temporary and partial freeze on the construction of homes for Jews in the West Bank. That falls far short of Barack Obama's demand made to the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, at a difficult meeting in Washington last month for a complete halt to building as evidence of a commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state

Tel Aviv newspapers reported Israeli officials as saying that Barak would meet Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in New York tomorrow to propose a three-month freeze on construction in settlements outside Jerusalem.

Israel is using its rapid construction programme to surround Jerusalem with Jewish housing and separate Arab districts from the rest of the occupied territories.If construction work continues it is not only likely to surround Jerusalem with Israeli housing but result in a Jewish majority in the east of the city which Israel would use to buttress its claim over all of Jerusalem at peace talks.

Egypt's intelligence chief is visiting Washington in what officials say is a push for a more flexible US stance on Hamas, to aid Palestinian unity talks.

Talks in Cairo to end the rift between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have faltered over the issue. The division between the factions is also a major barrier to reconstruction in Gaza after Israel's offensive. Cairo's influential head of intelligence, Omar Suleiman, is the chief mediator in the talks aimed at forging a Palestinian national unity government.

An unnamed US official told AFP news agency that Mr Suleiman had met US Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Tuesday and might meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday.

A senior U.S. official has told Reuters that Washington is asking Arab governments whether they might ease sanctions on Israel if it freezes settlement on land Palestinians want for a state. "I think the Americans are active on this issue," Barak said when asked to confirm this."While they are demanding from Israel steps and concessions in order to enable this regional peace effort to take off, they are approaching the Arabs as well and asking what they can contribute in terms of ... starting normalisation with Israel." "We are looking and trying to find a formula (which) needs to show our readiness to be sensitive to the needs of others."

The European Union Commission apologized to Israel's Ambassador to the Union, Ron Kuriel, over statements it made earlier this week claiming that the settlement policy was stifling the Palestinian economy and increasing Palestinian dependence on foreign aid – and therefore was costing European citizens in taxes.

The apology was issued after EU Ambassador to Israel Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal was reprimanded by Deputy Director of the Foreign Ministry Rafi Barak.

Ambassador Kuriel stressed the severity with which Israel sees Dickinson's statement, saying that the issue was not only the lack of diplomatic manners but also the clear deviation from the Commission's stated role, "which is to coordinate aid with the Palestinians, not arrogantly criticize Israel."   Kuriel was assured that an official communiqué had been issued to clarify that the earlier statement did not reflect the Commission's position.

Palestinian leaders on Monday categorically ruled out holding any peace talks with Israel until a full and lasting freeze in Jewish settlement.

"A total settlement freeze and a commitment to an independent Palestinian state will bring us back to the negotiating table immediately," Shaath said. He ruled out accepting exemptions to the freeze, including exceptions for building in East Jerusalem or expanding existing settlements to cope with "natural growth" of families there.

While Netanyahu and Obama's envoy George Mitchell are, say diplomats, discussing a freeze limited in time, to say six months or a year, Shaath said the only time limit Palestinians would accept was a freeze lasting until a final peace is signed.