Mitchell introduced as Mideast envoy

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's new Middle East envoy says there's "no such thing as a conflict that can't be ended." And former Senate Majority leader George Mitchell is pledging his full effort to bring peace and stability to the Middle East.

Mitchell said Thursday he'll be facing a "volatile, complex and dangerous" conflict — one that has become so entrenched, it's seen by many as unchangeable. But he says Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton aren't convinced of that.

With Obama looking on, Clinton introduced Mitchell to a State Department audience, saying he'd work to advance prospects for peace between Israel and its neighbors.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jj4G6URmrkJfrCJCR510o12AfNhQD95SD9500

[democrank]

1. What good news.

George Mitchell is absolutely perfect for this position.

[JFKfanforever]

7. Mitchell is a welcome antidote to Mr AIPAC Ross

May he broker a real and lasting peace for those suffering in
occupied Gaza and on the West Bank.
<<<sigh>>>

[EFerrari]

10. Agreed! And welcome to DU, JFKfan.

:)

[azurnoir]

2. Thanks great news

{i]Mitchell said Thursday he'll be facing a "volatile, complex and dangerous" conflict — one that has become so entrenched, it's seen by many as unchangeable. But he says Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton aren't convinced of that.

John Major wasn't too convinced either when it came to the IRA and even though the agreement was not signed while he was still in office so Blair gets the credit it was Major who did the work, perhaps Hilary needs to revisit that, President Obama already knows

[Sherman A1]

3. Cool

Just saw him on Tuesday night speaking in St. Louis, he could not comment on the position at that time, but he told great stories of his time in the Senate and working on the Troubles.

He will be great!

[subsuelo]

4. Obama picks George Mitchell as Mideast envoy 'to make Gaza truce last'

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057919.html

In a news conference at the U.S. State Department, Obama reaffirmed his commitment to reaching a peace for the Middle East.

"It will be the policy of my administration to actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians as well as Israel and its Arab neighbors," Obama said, adding that he would send Mitchell soon to the region.

Obama also said the outline for a "durable cease-fire" in Gaza was clear.

"Hamas must end its rocket fire, Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza. The United States and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime so that Hamas cannot rearm," the new president said in his first major speech on the region as president.

[bemildred]

5. Put that in I/P, please. nt

[maddezmom]

6. transcript: President Obama Delivers Remarks to State Department Employees

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012202550.html

[bemildred]

8. Thanks. nt

[laststeamtrain]

9. Politico: U.S. foreign policy: Who's in charge?

U.S. foreign policy: Who's in charge?
By BEN SMITH | 1/22/09

<snip>

In an interview with Politico, Anti-Defamation League chief Abe Foxman criticized Mitchell's stance of "neutrality." "The Swiss were neutral ," he said. And the head of the Zionist Organization of America, Mort Klein, decried Mitchell as “overly sympathetic to the Palestinian Arabs."

But many of those critics also viewed the Bush administration as soft on Israel — “Condoleezza Rice was at least as problematic as Mitchell, if not worse,” said Klein — and other pro-Israel figures described Mitchell as a staunch supporter of Israeli security.

“Senator Mitchell was a strong supporter of Israel in the Senate,” said a former legislative director for the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, Doug Bloomfield, who added that in the Mitchell report, “each side was offended — so that means he must have done something right.”

“Danger and difficulty cannot cause the United States to turn away,” Mitchell said in his remarks today. “Peace and stability in the Middle East are in our national interest.”
The most glowing reviews of Mitchell’s appointment, though, came from Bush administration critics who had worried that Obama would rely on the usual diplomatic suspects and fall into familiar patterns.

“Mitchell is significant because he combines the three elements that have been missing since Baker,” said Miller. “Proven negotiating skills, fairness in understanding Arab and Israeli requirements, and stature as a senior pol.”

<more>

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17811_Page2.html

[laststeamtrain]

11. Jim Lobe: Parsing Obama’s Words on Mitchell Appointment

Parsing Obama’s Words on Mitchell Appointment
Jim Lobe

Intelligence analysts and diplomats must be poring over Obama’s carefully scripted remarks today at the State Department where he confirmed the appointment of Sen. George Mitchell as Special Envoy for the Middle East for clues as to precisely where U.S. diplomacy, particularly with respect to Israel and the Palestinians, is headed. (I wrote up the appointments in a news story that you can find here, and I’m hoping Helena Cobban will add her analysis on the IPS service over the next 12 hours.)

First, I should say I think the appointment itself is as good as one could hope for, precisely because of the ADL’s Abraham Foxman’s complaint that Mitchell was “meticulously even-handed” in his April, 2001, report on how to curb the violence of the second intifada and get the peace process back on track. In that respect, he’s a whole lot better than Dennis Ross, and, given his political savvy, and his stature and influence among fellow-Democrats in Congress, his views on the conflict will be much more difficult for AIPAC, WINEP, ADL, etc. to counter than if the Special Envoy were Richard Haass or Dan Kurtzer.

Second, Mitchell himself, I thought, made clear that he expects to report directly to Obama himself, not just to Clinton, when he said that the effort to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians “must be backed up by political capital, economic resources, and focused attention at the highest levels of our government,” meaning, I presume, the Oval Office. Clinton added to the notion that Mitchell’s authority is considerable, saying “he will lead our efforts to reinvigorate the process for achieving peace between Israel and its neighbors” (emphasis mine). The active verb “lead” contrasted with her description of Holbrooke’s role: to “coordinate across the entire government an effort to achieve United States’ strategic goals in (Afghanistan and Pakistan),” to which she then added his work “will be closely coordinated, not only within the State Department and, of course, with USAID, but also with the Defense Department and under the coordination of the National Security Council” (emphasis mine again). Holbrooke himself then noted that Clinton was his “immediate boss” and that his mandate was to “help coordinate” the various agencies working on the region. (I tried to find out if there was a difference in protocol between a “special envoy,” Mitchell’s title, and a “special representative,” Holbrooke’s, but no one in the White House and the State Department could tell me.)

But what really caught my eye was Obama’s own words about Mitchelle’s role; specifically, that “he will be fully empowered at the negotiating table” — or plenipotentiary — meaning that he will be THE U.S. negotiator, the man all the parties will have to deal with. I don’t see how, even if Ross gets his seventh-floor State Department office and his exalted title as “ambassador-at-large” and “senior adviser” to Clinton (as prematurely announced by the WINEP memo disclosed by Chris Nelson more than two weeks ago), he will be able to supervise, let alone direct, Mitchell’s work. (It’s also inconceivable that Mitchell would have accepted the position if Ross had been given some kind of supervisory role.) Of course, it will be very interesting to see where Mitchell’s headquarters will actually be located.

Third, I found in Obama’s remarks about Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict evidence of markedly greater even-handedness in describing the perspectives and needs of the two parties, as also noted by the folks at NAF Task Force: “President Obama,” it said, “found a language that managed to be both staunchly supportive of Israel and its security while at the same time conveying genuine empathy for the Palestinian predicament and Palestinian dignity. President Obama achieved this by addressing the suffering of Palestinian civilians as an issue in its own right rather than as a derivative of Hamas behavior. In doing so he found a vocabulary and a nuance that will likely be welcomed in the Middle East.

<more>

http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=219