Here's a news item that, amidst other crises, slipped under the radar: "A meeting between Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell originally scheduled to take place in Paris on Thursday has been postponed with no new date set."
This was supposed to be the follow-up to President Obama's Cairo initiative but the US-Israel row over Israeli settlements in the West Bank is still at the centre of relations. Netayanhu's recent speech has not removed that obstacle; to the contrary, it indicates that Tel Aviv is holding its position.
So the process reverts to another visit by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Washington on Monday. Barak had privately and publicly more receptive of the US position, but on Tuesday he was reported "to have approved the construction of 240 housing units" in the Israeli settlements. A State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly, announced the Mitchell-Netanyahu suspension and added:
I’ll reiterate our – what we always say or what I always say and what others say: We oppose continued settlement activity. All parties have the responsibility to help create the context that will support renewed, meaningful negotiations that can be concluded quickly. The bottom line is that we expect all parties to honor their commitments. Our position is that settlement activity has to stop consistent with the Roadmap.
On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his US colleague, Hillary Clinton, met in Washington. The main subjects for discussion were the peace process in the Middle East, with particular attention to the American demand for a freeze on expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and the Iranian elections.
Speaking to the press after the meeting, Clinton began by underlining the special relationship between Israel and the US. This, however, was only a prelude to more substantive differences with both Clinton and Lieberman being "clear" about their positions. The Israeli Foreign Minister said:
We cannot accept this vision about absolutely completely freezing call for our settlements. I think that we must keep the natural growth. The Prime Minister spoke about this in his speech. I think that this position, it’s – this view, this approach, it’s very clear.
Clinton was more measured, even cautious, in her statement but --- between the words --- calling for a shift in Israeli position:
Well, I think if one looks at Israeli history, there have been prime ministers going back to the beginning of Israelis’ statehood that have staked out positions which have changed over time. I personally have known such prime ministers from Labor, Likud and Kadima, who started in one place, but in the process of evaluating what was in the best interests of Israel, and that has to be the primary obligation of any leader of Israel: What is in the best interests of my people and the future of my state?
And these prime ministers have moved to positions that they never would have thought they could have advocated before they started looking hard and thinking hard about what the future should be. But that’s what negotiations are for.
While the US has yet to convince Israel on the settlements issue, Clinton did indicate that Washington had succeeded in another important area: keeping Iran in the background, rather than at the forefront, of US-Israel discussions. Speaking about the current crisis over the Presidential election, she re-emphasized that the United States would not interfere in the internal affairs of Iran while maintaining the openness of the Obama Administration to engagement with the next Iranian Government, whoever was in charge.
TRANSCRIPT
SECRETARY CLINTON: Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to welcome Foreign Minister Lieberman to the State Department today for his first official visit to Washington in his new role. Minister Lieberman’s visit gave me the opportunity to reaffirm the United States deep, unshakable friendship and bond with Israel. Our commitment to Israel’s security is and will remain a cornerstone of our foreign policy, and I was pleased to have this chance to express that personally to the foreign minister. The United States has no greater ally in the Middle East and no greater friend than Israel.
Because our countries are close friends, we spoke honestly and openly about a range of issues. And we are looking forward to continuing that dialogue in the U.S.-Israel strategic dialogue, which has provided a useful forum for discussion of shared concerns and challenges over recent years. We exchanged views on the Middle East, including Iran, and reiterated the need for Iran’s leaders to comply with obligations to the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency to suspend enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. And we look forward to Iran’s response to our offers of engagement.
And of course, we also focused on efforts to bring about a comprehensive peace between Israel and her neighbors in the region. Israel’s right to exist in peace and security is undeniable and non-negotiable. Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve to live in peace and security in two states that will entail both parties fulfilling their obligations under the Roadmap.
Building on the Arab Peace Initiative, Arab states must do their part to support the Palestinian people as they develop the institutions that will sustain their state. And they must recognize Israel’s legitimacy and, in doing so, choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.
The United States will never do anything to undermine Israel’s security, and the United States also supports a viable Palestinian state. We do not believe that these two objectives are incompatible. In fact, we believe they are both critical elements of a comprehensive and secure peace.
Minister Lieberman, I hope that you enjoy your first visit to the United States as your country’s foreign minister, and I look forward to continuing our conversation and working with you more on these issues in the future.
FOREIGN MINISTER LIEBERMAN: Madame Secretary, at the outset, I would like to say to you how much the people and the Government of Israel appreciate your consistent support of Israel. We value your friendship greatly. We remember the many contributions you have made personally, even before you became a United States senator from New York. We thank you, Your Excellency, for your longstanding commitment to Israel and to strengthening the American-Israeli special relationship and friendship.
I think that we have had a good discussion today covering a broad spectrum of regional and global issues. We also covered a wide range of important bilateral topics. Madame Secretary, I thank you for your very kind hospitality today, and I look forward to our future friendly dialogue, both in Washington and in Jerusalem. Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.
MR. KELLY: Our first question goes to Lachlan Carmichael.
QUESTION: Yes, Minister --
SECRETARY CLINTON: Here comes the microphone, Lachlan.
QUESTION: Minister Lieberman, first, Ambassador Oren, the new ambassador to Washington, is talking about some interesting proposals on settlements. Could you elaborate on what they might be? And then for Secretary Clinton, does that mean there is some wiggle room to your statement that there should be no such settlement activity?
And finally, for both of you, did you discuss previous President George Bush’s letters, private letters to the Israeli Government? Is that issue over with?
FOREIGN MINISTER LIEBERMAN: Thank you. It’s a long question. (Laughter.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: It’s actually three questions.
FOREIGN MINISTER LIEBERMAN: Three questions, yeah. First of all, we really don’t have any intention to change the demographic balance in Judea and Samaria. But we think that, you know, as – in every place around the world, baby are born (inaudible), people get married, some pass away. And we cannot accept – we cannot accept this vision about absolutely completely freezing call for our settlements. I think that we must keep the natural growth. Prime minister spoke about this in his speech. I think that this position, it’s – this view, this approach, it’s very clear.
And also, we had some understandings with the previous administration and we tried to keep this direction. And we are, of course, ready for immediately direct talks with the Palestinians.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, as President Obama, Senator Mitchell and I have said, we want to see a stop to the settlements. We think that is an important and essential part of pursuing the efforts leading to a comprehensive peace agreement and the creation of a Palestinian state next to a Israeli-Jewish state that is secure in its borders and future. We believe that this process which Senator Mitchell is quarterbacking for us has just begun. There are a number of critical concerns, many of which overlap in their impact and significance, that will be explored in the coming weeks as Senator Mitchell engages more deeply into the specifics as to where the Israelis and the Palestinians are willing to go together.
I think that the whole issue that you’ve raised is one that we’ve expressed our opinion on. And in looking at the history of the Bush Administration, there were no informal or oral enforceable agreements. That has been verified by the official record of the Administration and by the personnel in the positions of responsibility. Our former ambassador Dan Kurtzer has written an op-ed that appeared in the last few days that lays out our position on that.
MR. KELLY: Our next question, Israeli television, Channel 2.
QUESTION: Thank you. Madame Secretary, I’m interested to know, how do you envision any progress, any chance for achievement of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track when the Israeli prime minister and the foreign minister have put so many conditions on the existing of a Palestinian state, conditions that are all – all-out refused by their Arab neighbors, including the Palestinians? And when you hear that the Israeli – current Israeli Government refuses totally to talk about your demand of freezing the settlement activity, how do you envision a progress on that track?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think if one looks at Israeli history, there have been prime ministers going back to the beginning of Israelis’ statehood that have staked out positions which have changed over time. I personally have known such prime ministers from Labor, Likud and Kadima, who started in one place, but in the process of evaluating what was in the best interests of Israel, and that has to be the primary obligation of any leader of Israel: What is in the best interests of my people and the future of my state?
And these prime ministers have moved to positions that they never would have thought they could have advocated before they started looking hard and thinking hard about what the future should be. But that’s what negotiations are for.
QUESTION: Do you hold out that Netanyahu and Lieberman will follow through (inaudible)?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I leave that to them to decide. I’m just reflecting on history and on people who have been in these positions over the last 30, 40 years. And there has been an evolution in thought. And I thought Prime Minister Netanyahu, in recognizing the aspirations of the Palestinians for a state of their own in his speech on Sunday night, said something that many people were waiting to hear him say.
MR. KELLY: Next question, Charlie Wolfson from CBS News.
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, on Iran, and also for the foreign minister. The Iranians have protested U.S. actions through the Swiss ambassador today. Could you bring us up to date on those protests? And there have also been criticisms or reports of criticisms about U.S. interference in Iranian affairs because of the call to Twitter, if you could comment on that.
And for the foreign minister, does the outcome of the Iranian election change Israel’s position in any way, and were your discussions today – did they touch on that, and any actions you asked the Administration to do?
SECRETARY CLINTON: That’s four questions for the foreign minister. (Laughter.) We have very creative reporters on both sides here. (Laughter.)
The United States believes passionately and strongly in the basic principle of free expression. We believe that it is a fundamental human right for people to be able to communicate, to express their opinions, to take positions. And this is a view that goes back to the founding of our country, and we stand firmly behind it.
And therefore, we promote the right of free expression. And it is the case that one of the means of expression, the use of Twitter, is a very important one not only to the Iranian people, but now increasingly to people around the world, and most particularly young people. I wouldn’t know a Twitter from a tweeter – (laughter) – but apparently, it is very important. And I think keeping that line of communications open and enabling people to share information, particularly at a time when there was not many other sources of information, is an important expression of the right to speak out and to be able to organize that we value.
FOREIGN MINISTER LIEBERMAN: Thank you. As somebody said before you, we support evolution, not a revolution, and we never interfered in any internal affairs of the different countries. And what it’s important for us, not the personal creation, but the creation of policy. And what we saw during this elections, it was only one point that every candidates were united: its achieving, quote, nuclear capability; and maybe the other point, the hatred to Israel. What it’s important for us, it’s real – not the domestic problems of Iran, but their policy. And we hope that they will change their policy.
MR. KELLY: Last question for Channel One, Israel Television.
QUESTION: Thank you. Madame Secretary, given the latest unrest in Iran and the very brutal way the regime there is moving to quash these protests, does the Administration still believe there is room to engage diplomatically with Iran? And are you concerned that such engagement might embolden actually Ahmadinejad and his regime?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first let me say that the people of Iran deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted. The outcome of any election should reflect the will of the people. And it is for the Iranians to determine how they resolve this internal protest concerning the outcome of the recent election. But it is a fundamental value that the United States holds with respect to free and fair and credible elections.
With regard to engagement, obviously we intend to pursue engagement because we think it’s in the interests of the United States and the world community to discuss with the Iranian Government important matters such as the one Minister Lieberman raised concerning their intentions for their nuclear program, their support of terrorism, their interference with the affairs of their neighbors and other states.
So yes, we think there is much to talk about. And I would think it’s a useful exercise to look back on history and to see where countries, most particularly my own, have engaged in ongoing diplomatic discussions with countries whose regimes we’ve disapproved of, that we rejected. We never stopped negotiating with the former Soviet Union. They invaded countries. They promoted unrest. But we knew we had an opportunity to learn more, to discuss fully, and perhaps to reach better understandings than we might have in the absence of such engagement, so we pursued it.
We are doing this out of what we view as our interest and the interests of friends and allies such as Israel. So now we are obviously waiting to see the outcome of the internal Iranian processes, but our intent is to pursue whatever opportunities might exist in the future with Iran to discuss these matters.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a master politician, but as he walked to the podium at Bar Ilan University yesterday, he faced a magician's challenge: how could he ever wish away the headline US pressure on his Cabinet to start a meaningful Israel-Palestine peace process by halting the expansion of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank?
No problem for Bibi: he did it with a wave of the hand: "The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel." With that single sentence, the Prime Minister not only escaped from Washington's chains; he draped them around the shoulders of the Palestinian Authority.
The international media, primed in advance by the Prime Minister's office, rushed to declare that Benjamin Netanyahu, for the first time, had recognised a Palestinian state. Netanyahu's three references to that "state", however, were either far from positive or laden with conditions: "There is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state"; "It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarized"; and, most importantly:
If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel’s security needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the State of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state.
This was a political manoeuvre (I'll shy away from a reference to a magician's trick) of the highest order. Netanyahu ensured that he got the immediate endorsement of the White House without giving any ground.
For the immediate effect is to turn pressure onto the Palestinian Authority. Under Netanyahu's formula, Mahmoud Abbas and his advisors will have to not only repeat their recognition of Israel, given to the US-UN-European Union-Russia Quartet, but also declare in advance that they will not have any armed forces beyond local police. They will have to renounce the Palestinian "right to return" to lands owned in Israel before 1948.
While putting conditions on his Palestinian counterparts, Netanyahu is trying to make the condition set on Israel by US disappear. He began with the apparent concession, "We have no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements," while at the same time trying to lock in construction which has already occurred or been authorised by the Israeli Government:
There is a need to enable the residents to live normal lives, to allow mothers and fathers to raise their children like families elsewhere. The settlers are neither the enemies of the people nor the enemies of peace. Rather, they are an integral part of our people, a principled, pioneering and Zionist public.
Far from incidentally, the Israeli Prime Minister also drew the line against any political recognition of Hamas, a possibility opened up in President Obama's Cairo speech. He did so far from subtly: "Above all else, the Palestinians must decide between the path of peace and the path of Hamas." Even more importantly for his strategy, Netanyahu used the Hamas menace to reinforce his demands on the Palestinian Authority: "Without [demilitarization], sooner or later, these territories will become another Hamastan."
Of course, Netanyahu's success may only be short-term. This morning, the initial headlines have of his "two-state" declaration have been offset by stories of the Palestinian rejection of his speech. And there are signs that Obama officials may have recognised their endorsement was given too quickly, in light of Netanyahu's conditions and his rejection of their condition to resolve the settlements issue.
For the moment, however, the Israeli Prime Minister has given himself a bit of breathing space. The US had hoped to follow the Cairo speech with diplomatic advances through envoy George Mitchell's talks in Tel Aviv, Ramallah, and Damascus. Netanyahu's manoeuvres, with his staff publicly denouncing Washington's approach before the promise of a speech after Mitchell's departure, and (height of ironies) the sudden attention given to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "victory" in Iran has blocked those American hopes.
Netanyahu's magic? At the same time that he supposedly accepted the "two-state" peace process, his carefully-framed speech --- for the moment --- made it disappear.
The situation in Iran has taken up much of our time this weekend. We have not forgotten, however, that there is an important ongoing situation in the Middle East. President Obama's envoy, George Mitchell, has followed up talks in Israel and the West Bank with visits to Beirut and Damascus, and there is a major speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today.
We will try to get the video and/or transcript of the Netanyahu speech, and we will be posting a full analysis on Monday.
In our analysis of the first US-Israeli talks after President Obama's Cairo speech, posted separately, we claim that Israeli Prime Minister is trying to take control of the Palestine issue from Washington.
How can we dare to be so bold? Because of Netanyahu's own officials.
Just after Netanyahu met Obama in mid-May, stories started circulating that the US President wanted an Israel-Palestine settlement by the end of July. Just like the claim that Obama had set a limit of the end of 2009 for an outcome from US-Iran talks, the rumours rang strangely: the President's notion of "engagement" is not one that has rested on deadlines but on opening up possibilities for results.
On Monday, the source and reason for the claim emerged: Benjamin Netanyahu's office wants to put the White House in a corner. So they are attacking the President and his staff through leaks to the Israeli media.
Their summary emerged in Ha'aretz on Monday: "Barack Obama wants a confrontation with Israel....an open controversy with Israel would serve the Obama administration's main objective of improving U.S. relations with the Arab world....the president will present positions that will not be easy for Israel to accept."
That on its own should be sufficient to raise eyebrows in Washington about the Israeli Prime Minister's readiness to deal with the US President. However, Netanyahu's aides went further, launching a personal attack on Obama's advisors. "Under Obama, the White House has become the main problem in relations....White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama's senior political consultant David Axelrod are behind the clash between the administration and Israel."
This is far from the first occasion that the Netanyahu camp has followed diplomatic talks by turning, in far from diplomatic terms, against the Obama Administration. Within 72 hours of the Netanyahu-Obama discussions in May, they were briefing the press that US policies were "childish" and "juvenile".
Still, it is striking that as Obama envoy George Mitchell tries to keep the diplomatic temperature low, avoiding any challenge in public statements or leaks of discussions, Netanyahu's staff are raising the heat by doing exactly the opposite. In preparation for the Prime Minister's own major speech next week, they''ve said:
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 10:12 
Here's a news item that, amidst other crises, slipped under the radar: "A meeting between Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell originally scheduled to take place in Paris on Thursday has been postponed with no new date set."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a master politician, but as he walked to the podium at Bar Ilan University yesterday, 
In our analysis of the first US-Israeli talks after President Obama's Cairo speech,