George Mitchell returns to law firm after 2 years as Mideast envoy
George Mitchell says he doesn’t believe in retirement.
After two years focusing on Middle East peace for President Barack Obama, he returned Monday to the law firm DLA Piper as chairman emeritus.
In an interview with Leigh Jones of Reuters, Mitchell said Israelis and Palestinians have mutual interests. Palestinians won’t get statehood unless Israel gets security, and vice versa.
“If you can make sure the agreement has the central demand of each side, you can get an agreement,” he said.
Mitchell resigned from the Middle East special envoy post in March, having served the two years he had promised the president. “I told him that I was interested and would serve, but that I could not do it for a whole presidential term. I had children late in life.” Mitchell, who is 77, said he did not want to spend too much time away from his family.
“My only objective was to serve the best I could to advance the objective that we all seek comprehensive peace in the Middle East, recognizing the enormous difficulty, complexity and long history of the conflict,” he said.
Mitchell returns to the 4,200-attorney DLA Piper as chairman emeritus, the same job he gave up when President Obama appointed him to the Middle East position. The last time he was at DLA Piper, he led an investigation in 2006 into steroid use within Major League Baseball.
Washington Extra – summer reading
While President Barack Obama went book shopping on Martha’s Vineyard and bought a novel about a family from the Midwest –“Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen — Vice President Joe Biden was out in the Midwest talking the talk in St. Louis.
VPOTUS assured Democratic Party leaders that they would retain control of Congress in November because Republicans were out of touch. ”They are going to look at what the Republican Party is really offering — more of the past, but on steroids,” Biden said.
That brings us to the State Department press corps ALMOST asking George Mitchell about baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, but refraining and sticking to the news at hand – a fresh attempt to jumpstart Middle East peace talks with a meeting in Washington next month.
Oh, and finally, it’s Friday!
Here are our top stories from today…
U .S. seeks to relaunch direct Mideast peace talks
The United States and other big powers asked Israel and the Palestinians to restart direct talks on Sept. 2, aiming for a deal in one year to create a Palestinian state and bring peace to one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were invited to meet with President Barack Obama before formally resuming direct negotiations.
Of diplomacy and baseball…
Timing is everything in diplomacy and baseball.
After months of prickly talks aimed at coaxing Israelis and Palestinians into direct peace talks, U.S. envoy George Mitchell finally had news to share. But when the U.S. mediator par excellence took the stage for questions Friday at the State Department, reporters tossed him one out of left field.
“As tempted as I am to ask you about Roger Clemens…,” his first questioner began, to chortles from reporters and State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.
Mitchell, of course, between peacemaking stints in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, took a stab back in 2007 at resolving the conflict between Congress and Major League Baseball over the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Clemens, one of the best pitchers in baseball history, was named in Mitchell’s report as having taken drugs, but he denied it in testimony before Congress.
The seven-time Cy Young Award winner was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday on charges of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of Congress. He faces a $1.5 million fine and up to 30 years in prison.
So it was tantalizing to wonder what the former Maine judge and senator might have to say about Clemens.
No “no” is final, U.S. mideast peace envoy says
President Barack Obama’s mideast peace envoy George Mitchell is an unlikely optimist.
Ten months into an assignment that has confounded generations of U.S. diplomats, Mitchell said on Wednesday he remained upbeat about bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to peace talks — thanks in part to his experience resolving another once-intractable crisis, the dispute between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
Mitchell, credited with shaping the 1998 Good Friday Accord that ended that long and bloody conflict, said the key was not to lose heart.
“Over a period of five years, I chaired three separate sets of discussions. The main negotiation lasted for nearly two years. For most of that time, there was little or no progress, and our effort was branded a failure,” Mitchell told a news briefing.
“But then, after two years of saying no, both sides said yes. In a real sense, we had 700 days of failure and one day of success.”
Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader, has thus far had little success in shuttle diplomacy aimed at resuming stalled Mideast peace talks, which have seen the two sides still bitterly divided over the issue of Israeli settlement construction on Palestinian lands.
You have to give the man credit for trying. I still think there will never be a solution unless there is a clear winner. He then sets the rules and life can go on.
