Thursday
Nov052009
Israel-Palestine: Clinton's Cairo Visit Pushes Talks Into the Distance
Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 9:57
Video & Transcript: Clinton Press Conference in Egypt (4 November)
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On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit spoke to the public after a meeting they had with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
A day earlier, Egyptian Foreign Minister was asking for guarantees for Palestinians and was warning all sides "not to waste time", even as Clinton was playing up "unprecedented concessions" by Israel on settlements. At the conference, this translated into an amiable exchange of Gheit's satisfaction with Washington's "unchanged" position and Clinton's repetition of her rhetoric "calling both sides on the negotiation table."
On settlements, Clinton said:
That seems a consistent position, since it is impossible to talk about a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders without the prospect of halting settlements in the West Bank. The difficulty remains, however, that Washington has put forward no possibility of pressure on the Israeli side to bring a settlement freeze and thus a move towards the negotiation table.
That difficulty may have been complicated by Clinton's description of the Goldstone Report on Gaza as an "impediment": "We’re not going to let anything deter us or prevent us from working as hard as we possibly can, going forward." Thus, far from showing how Washington could press Israel to recognise the international position, Clinton effectively set up Goldstone as another pretext for Israeli refusal or delay on negotiations: Tel Aviv can simply argue that there will be no talks without a repudiation of the report.
Clinton, offsetting these difficulties, reiterated her "unprecedented concessions" statement from Jerusalem, "What we have received from the Israelis to halt all new settlement activity –-- and I’ll repeat that again, too –-- to halt all new settlement activities and to end the expropriation of land, and to issue no permits or approvals, is unprecedented."
Someone might want to update Madame Secretary that the Netanyahu Government has already approved additional 3,000 housing units and has put an exception of "natural growth" problems to justify further construction.
So where is "unprecedented" in this picture? And where is the stimulus for both sides to come to the oft-upheld negotiation table? If anything, the prospect for talks appears to have receded. After the conference, the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat declared that Palestinians may have to abandon the goal of creating an independent state, "It may be time for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to tell his people the truth, that with the continuation of settlement activities, the two-state solution is no longer an option."
Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit spoke to the public after a meeting they had with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.A day earlier, Egyptian Foreign Minister was asking for guarantees for Palestinians and was warning all sides "not to waste time", even as Clinton was playing up "unprecedented concessions" by Israel on settlements. At the conference, this translated into an amiable exchange of Gheit's satisfaction with Washington's "unchanged" position and Clinton's repetition of her rhetoric "calling both sides on the negotiation table."
On settlements, Clinton said:
I want to start by saying our policy on settlements has not changed. And I want to say it again, our policy on settlement activity has not changed. We do not accept the legitimacy of settlement activity.
Well, I can repeat to you what President Obama said in his speech at the United Nations and what he said here in Cairo – that the United States believes that we need a state that is based on the territory that has been occupied since 1967.
That seems a consistent position, since it is impossible to talk about a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders without the prospect of halting settlements in the West Bank. The difficulty remains, however, that Washington has put forward no possibility of pressure on the Israeli side to bring a settlement freeze and thus a move towards the negotiation table.
That difficulty may have been complicated by Clinton's description of the Goldstone Report on Gaza as an "impediment": "We’re not going to let anything deter us or prevent us from working as hard as we possibly can, going forward." Thus, far from showing how Washington could press Israel to recognise the international position, Clinton effectively set up Goldstone as another pretext for Israeli refusal or delay on negotiations: Tel Aviv can simply argue that there will be no talks without a repudiation of the report.
Clinton, offsetting these difficulties, reiterated her "unprecedented concessions" statement from Jerusalem, "What we have received from the Israelis to halt all new settlement activity –-- and I’ll repeat that again, too –-- to halt all new settlement activities and to end the expropriation of land, and to issue no permits or approvals, is unprecedented."
Someone might want to update Madame Secretary that the Netanyahu Government has already approved additional 3,000 housing units and has put an exception of "natural growth" problems to justify further construction.
So where is "unprecedented" in this picture? And where is the stimulus for both sides to come to the oft-upheld negotiation table? If anything, the prospect for talks appears to have receded. After the conference, the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat declared that Palestinians may have to abandon the goal of creating an independent state, "It may be time for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to tell his people the truth, that with the continuation of settlement activities, the two-state solution is no longer an option."