Washington – US In Last-Ditch Bid To Avert New Mideast Crisis

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    Palestinian children and volunteers from the Aida refugee camp help to paste posters of themselves holding painted flags from countries that support a bid for Palestinian statehood, on Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Friday, Sept. 9, 2011. Palestinian Munther Amira from the Youth Activities Center in the Aida refugee camp came up with the idea for the painted posters when he saw that the french street artist JR was in the West Bank and Israel doing a project which entailed people getting their photo taken and then printed large. Amira organized a group of children from the camp to go take their photos and then paint flags to help rally support for U.N. recognition for a Palestinian independent state. (AP Photo/Tara Todras-Whitehill)Washington – The Obama administration is making a final effort to avert a diplomatic crisis over a Palestinian drive to win U.N. recognition as an independent state that threatens to provoke a regional meltdown and further isolate Israel, the top U.S. ally in the Mideast.

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    The administration’s top two Mideast envoys were leaving Tuesday for Israel and the Palestinian territories to try to persuade the Palestinians to drop their U.N. plans and bring both sides back to long-stalled talks. At the same time, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns was visiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this week in part to seek Arab support for a still-undefined plan that could defuse the situation.

    Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was sending David Hale, the special envoy for Middle East peace, and Dennis Ross, the top Mideast adviser at the National Security Council, to try “to create a sustainable platform for negotiations that can produce the two-state outcome that we seek.”

    “Our hope is we get the parties back into a frame of mind and into a process where they actually begin negotiating again,” Clinton told reporters at the State Department.

    Hale and Ross was to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday and Thursday before returning to the U.S. ahead of the annual U.N. General Assembly session that begins Sept. 20 in New York.

    The two were in the region just last week but failed to persuade Palestinian officials to abandon their quest for U.N. recognition. Palestinian officials say they will bring their resolution to the U.N. sometime during the General Assembly and use their desired recognition to gain leverage with Israel.

    Israel is vehemently opposed to such a move and the United States has said it will veto it in the U.N. Security Council. However, the Palestinians have suggested that instead of going to the Security Council, they may seek a vote on recognition in the General Assembly, where the U.S. cannot veto it and it is likely to pass.

    Israel and the United States insist that the United Nations is not the forum to create a state and that a future Palestine must come as the result of direct negotiations.

    “We need an environment that is conducive to direct negotiations,” Clinton said of the goal of the Hale-Ross mission. “We all know that no matter what happens or doesn’t happen at the U.N., the next day is not going to result in the kind of changes that the United States wishes to see that would move us toward a two-state solution that we strongly support. The only way of getting a lasting solution is through direct negotiations between the parties and the route to that lies in Jerusalem and Ramallah, not in New York.”

    She said the issue “is not simply that action in New York will not bring peace and stability, but it will create more distractions toward achieving that goal.”

    To persuade the Palestinians not to go to the U.N., the U.S. has been trying to get its partners in the international diplomatic “Quartet” of Middle East peacemakers — the United Nations, European Union and Russia — to adopt a statement calling for a return to direct talks under a loose framework laid out by President Barack Obama in May. That effort has yet to be successful and took a hit on Monday when Russia said it would vote for whatever resolution the Palestinians present at the U.N.

    Under a rough timeline being proposed by the Americans, Hale and Ross would win an agreement in principle from the Israelis and Palestinians to resume negotiations that broke down nearly one year ago. That would then be followed by a statement of support from the Quartet, which would also propose parameters for the talks.

    To try to forge a consensus within the Quartet, Clinton spoke on Monday to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and on Tuesday with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Quartet’s special representative.

    The Palestinian bid for recognition comes at a particularly delicate time in the Middle East, especially as it relates to Israel and its neighbors. Once-strong ties between Israel and Turkey have frayed in recent weeks over Israel’s refusal to apologize for its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last year that killed nine Turks. And, the Jewish state’s ties with Egypt have been tested by the weekend attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.

    The U.S., which regards all three countries are crucial allies, has moved to try to ease tensions but both Turkey and Egypt are expected to support Palestinian moves at the U.N, which will further strain ties.


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    18 Comments
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    Sherree
    Sherree
    12 years ago

    Too little too late! The administrations’ attitude was not clear cut through the years and too much criticism of Israel bolster the Arabic egos and confidence to try more and more ways to topple Israel. As much as we say that US is a friend to Israel always, we forget to say “US is a friend to Israel and all their bordering countries”.

    This administration was an “OBOMOAnation, and we are seeing the fruits of his labors. HE and his administration following the tone that he set pushed the situation to where it is now and it looks like war is imminent. I doubt there is anything that Obama can do alone at this point to stop it. The only way to avoid an all out mideastern war at this point is if the US got other nations together to announce they will also veto the campaign and they would stand behind Israel if there were to be a war. That would mean England, China, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan, China, Spain, etc.

    Benjey
    Benjey
    12 years ago

    That ship has sailed its way to lait for that

    12 years ago

    Israel should print and posted pictures of every atrocity that the Palestinians did to the world and Israel and every terrorist attack since the 1960s and post it on the UN wall for the whole world to see………………….
    Are these animals worthy of a state? NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!

    bennym
    bennym
    12 years ago

    The Obama administration has deliberately let this crisis escalate to Isolate Israel. It started by strongly condemning Israel for the flotilla incident. Now it might turn into a full fledged war, and the amateurs in the White House see that this might be the the final nail in the coffin for Obama’s re-election if it escalates further.

    Butterfly
    Butterfly
    12 years ago

    Don’t say that so quickly!! Turkey wanted to buy Drones from the US and the US turned them down!!

    cookookajew
    Member
    cookookajew
    12 years ago

    So thats why hamas was playing nice. They wanted to play nice to shoot for statehood. I would very concerned if this were to happen. They would have no restriction on purchasing tanks and planes.

    my4amos
    my4amos
    12 years ago

    I don’t believe them. Obama may be going through the motions, but he doesn’t want to avert the crisis, otherwise he would have done it when it could still be done. This crisis is exactly what Obama always wanted. In his view, the inception of Israel the state was always an injustice that he wants to see corrected. The recent events, disturbing to any decent man, in Obama’s view bring that correction closer or maybe even making it imminent.

    DRSLZ
    DRSLZ
    12 years ago

    This is pathetic.

    12 years ago

    Don’t forgot העברת פי השם הוא לא תצלח it can take years but by the end hshem is boss