Netanyahu on Obama ties: Under the bus? What bus?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to take the bait on Sunday when asked if he agreed with Republican presidential candidates that President Barack Obama is not pro-Israel enough.
He was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s recent comment that the Democratic president “threw Israel under the bus.”
“You are trying to throw me under the bus of American politics and, guess what, I’m not going to be thrown there,” Netanyahu joked.
The Israeli leader has had a strained relationship with Obama and in May criticized his vision of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders as leaving Israel “indefensible.”
Some of the Republicans hoping to challenge Obama in the November 2012 election, including front-runners Romney and Texas Governor Rick Perry, have pounced on the issue and raced to proclaim their allegiance to the Jewish state.
Netanyahu, who called Obama’s speech on the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations last week a “badge of honor,” did not cede an inch to partisanship.
“I think the important thing to understand is this and this is the truth about America: Israel enjoys tremendous bipartisan support, tremendous,” he said. “And I think that bipartisan support is expressed by any person who happens to the president of the United States, including President Obama.”
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 – A glass half full, or half empty
Well at least no-one walked out, as one Middle East veteran remarked to me after the meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today. In fact, as our chief blogger Toby Zakaria observed, the public atmospherics between the two men were not too bad.
Seventeen years ago, President Bill Clinton practically forced Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to shake hands at the White House while observers held their collective breath. No such nudges were needed this week. Not only were there several, lingering handshakes, but even a brief animated conversation and a whispered aside.
But before we get carried away, my colleague Matt Spetalnick reminded us of all the obstacles facing the latest effort to forge peace in the Middle East. In decades of halting peace efforts, rarely has an Israeli-Palestinian peace process started with lower expectations. There were soaring words in public about the need for difficult compromises, but behind closed doors, the biggest tangible achievement was apparently an agreement to talk again.
Entrenched differences, the long history of mistrust, the looming expiration of a partial Israeli freeze on settlement-building, the threat from hardliners, and, perhaps above all, the political dynamics both men face at home: all reasons a breakthrough seems unlikely. Indeed many experts believe Netanyahu and Abbas have only come to the negotiating table, at least in part, to avoid being seen by President Barack Obama as the spoiler.
On the economy, it was a similar story, a glass half full or half empty depending on your mood. True there was better news from the housing and jobs markets, and from retailers, suggesting the economy might not after all be heading for a double dip recession. Nor, though, are we out of the woods or enjoying a Summer of Recovery. Indeed, most economists think tomorrow’s all important monthly labor market report could make for more grim reading.
Here are our top stories from today…
Mideast peace veterans and handshake diplomacy
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly referred to them as “veterans” of the Middle East peace process.
That description is probably one thing everyone can agree on. The process to bring Israelis and Palestinians to a lasting peace agreement has been going on for decades and every U.S. president hopes he’s the one who will finally achieve what those before him tried and failed.
President Barack Obama is the latest to take up the baton. He’s already won the Nobel Peace Prize, but will he be The One to triumph on Middle East Peace?
“We are under no illusions,” Obama said on Wednesday when he met with leaders ahead of today’s talks. “Passions run deep. Each side has legitimate and enduring interests. Years of mistrust will not disappear overnight.”
That last sentence is another thing that probably everyone can agree on.
But if the Israeli-Palestinian leaders’ handshakes over the years are any kind of indicator, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope.
Seventeen years ago in September 1993, President Bill Clinton practically forced Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to shake hands at the White House while observers held their collective breath wondering will they or won’t they?
Washington Extra -The audacity of hope?
If rescuing the U.S. economy from the Slough of Despond wasn’t enough, President Barack Obama took a stab at finding peace in the Middle East today. Obama is determined to forge a new relationship with the Muslim world, and presumably would like to unquestionably earn the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded last year. But getting embroiled in the Middle East is a risk for the president, not least because failure to reach an accord could set back his efforts to win over Muslims and achieve solidarity over Iran. Ordinary Israelis and Palestinians are not optimistic about this latest peace effort, and experts say the one-year deadline to reach a deal does not appear very realistic. Nevertheless, it is hard to argue with Obama’s opening remarks today, and his hope that “extremists and rejectionists” should not be allowed to derail the peace process.
It is often interesting when high-ranking officials leave office and get the chance to unburden themselves. White House economist Christina Romer was no exception today, issuing an impassioned plea for more economic stimulus measures, even if they push up the fiscal deficit in the short term. “The only sure-fire ways for policymakers to substantially increase aggregate demand in the short run are for the government to spend more and tax less. In my view we should be moving forward on both fronts,” she said in a speech at the National Press Club. “I desperately hope that policymakers on both sides of the aisle will find a way to finish the job of economic recovery,” she added. WashingtonExtra won’t be holding its metaphorical breath.
Finally today, another win by a Tea Party favorite in Alaska this week underlines that the movement is not just a passing fad, and has the staying power to be a significant factor in November’s Congressional elections. What’s more, Democratic hopes that radical Tea Party candidates will alienate moderate voters and energize Democrats are not being realized. In fact, Tea Party favorites are already ahead of Democratic rivals in the opinion polls in Colorado, Kentucky and Florida, and only slightly behind in Nevada.
Here are our top stories from today…
Obama opens Mideast peace summit, says U.S. resolute
President Barack Obama vowed that “extremists and rejectionists” would not derail the relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations as he opened a peace summit shadowed by Middle East violence. Wading into Middle East diplomacy in the face of deep skepticism over his chances for securing an elusive peace deal, Obama condemned as “senseless slaughter” a Hamas attack on Tuesday that killed four Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.
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.
The First Draft: searching for peace
President Barack Obama meets with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the White House around 11 a.m. in the long-running quest for Middle East peace that has bedeviled American presidents for decades.
Mubarak is already out with his talking points, saying in media interviews that Arab states would recognize and normalize ties with Israel only after an overall Middle East peace deal is achieved, and not before.
Obama then turns to Clinton vs. Clinton. He meets Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at 1:30 p.m. about her Africa trip, and then moves on to a meeting with Bill Clinton, the former president and current husband to the secretary of state, about his trip to North Korea.
The Obama-Clinton meeting on Africa is in the Oval Office, while the Obama-Clinton meeting on North Korea is in the Situation Room — it may be a draw in signaling which one is more important.
And speaking of searching for peace, Jenny Sanford (wife of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford who told the world about his longing for his Argentine mistress) talks to Vogue about dealing with the after-effects of the affair.
“I have learned that these affairs are almost like an addiction to alcohol or pronography. They just can’t break away from them,” Jenny Sanford says.
What else could Bibi say? There are 18 months during which Obama could do enough damage to put Israel into misery! He remembers how Clinton unseated him with the Limosine Socialist Barak, a failed Prime Minister, only to experience a replay with the Soros funded NIF and the newly purchased tents, this time a “social protest movement”, designed by the same Clinton operatives to finish him off. Bibi is a survivor, betting on Obama’s presidency disintegrating. he does not have to say a thing, Obama has switched the suicide button before he became president-he is not up to it. Time will prove me right.