Major Jewish voices concerned about Mitchell pick. Good.
Sat, Jan 24, 2009
Elections have consequences. One of those consequences is that columnists in Israel are suddenly rather interested in George Mitchell’s Lebanese mother.
When’s the last time you heard any major Jewish or Israeli voices air any concern whatsoever about US policy? ADL’s Abraham Foxman in New York Jewish Week.
“Sen. Mitchell is fair. He’s been meticulously even-handed,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “But the fact is, American policy in the Middle East hasn’t been ‘even handed’ — it has been supportive of Israel when it felt Israel needed critical U.S. support.
“So I’m concerned,” Foxman continued. “I’m not sure the situation requires that kind of approach in the Middle East.”
Jerusalem Post’s Shmuel Rosner.
Thus, the appointment of the patient, distinguished Mitchell is playing for time: As he works to create the conditions for peace, his other colleagues will be tasked with the more daunting mission.
Yeah, right, George Mitchell took this gig so other people could do the real work. Sure. What’s this really about? On the surface, objection to Mitchell centers on a 2001 report Mitchell authored regarding the issue of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.
Mitchell, whose mother, Mary Saad, was a textile worker who immigrated from Lebanon at age 18, is well-acquainted with the Middle East and was the head of a committee established soon after the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000, to determine the causes of the violence and ways to end it.
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In fact, it is precisely Mitchell’s involvement in that report that has some Israeli officials concerned that Jerusalem will soon find itself at odds with the US once again over the settlement issue.
The Mitchell Report called for an immediate cessation of violence and a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian Authority security cooperation, and a series of “confidence-building measures” to follow the cease-fire. The two key measures were that the PA had to “make clear through concrete action to Palestinians and Israelis alike that terrorism is reprehensible and unacceptable and that the PA will make a 100-percent effort to prevent terrorist operations and to punish perpetrators”; and that Israel had to “freeze all settlement activity, including the ‘natural growth’ of existing settlements.”
One government official said Mitchell’s position on zero settlement construction, together with new National Security Adviser James Jones’s previous articulation of frustration at Israel’s inability to dismantle outposts, would likely put Israel and the new administration on a collision course.
A former Sinn Fein negotiator notes in the Boston Globe another reason that Mitchell is likely to come under fire from Israeli voices – inclusion of Hamas in negotiations if they agree to a cease fire.
But friends and former colleagues say Mitchell’s experience pushing the leadership of the militant Irish Republican Army to give up terrorist bombings and become peaceful politicians makes him more inclined to see Hamas as a crucial player that must be at the table for any peace agreement. Hamas won parliamentary elections and now controls Gaza, a significant part of any future Palestinian state.
“As George knows from his experience here – dialogue is key and this will mean direct dialogue with Hamas in the time ahead,” Bairbre de Brún, a senior negotiator from Sinn Féin, the political party affiliated with the IRA, said in an e-mail yesterday.
There are people who benefit from the status quo in the Middle East, and they read the Jerusalem Post, writers for which are linked in this post twice. And they are starting to realize that President Obama means business. George Mitchell did not take this position, at the age of 75, to “manage crises” or “play for time”. Mitchell took this position to cap his life and career with a defining achievement that would dwarf that for which he is sainted in Ireland.
Fasten your seatbelts, folks. I’m pretty sure George Mitchell has already.
Tags: george mitchell, hamas, israel, middle east
January 24th, 2009 at 9:57 am
I don’t think the major Jewish voices are the only ones concerned – I haven’t done much more reading on this yet since the news first came out, but I would have to believe that there are plenty of Arab voices, Muslim and Christian, who will be pushing back too if they haven’t made noise already.
Overall – I agree with your thoughts. Here are mine:
1. Mitchell is prized for his skills, and Ireland is referenced because of it having seemed intractable. However, I dont’ believe in an entire grafting onto the Middle East the path and tactics used there.
2. The Arab League itself is divided re: what it wants to have happen and the role they’ll play (how much responsibility they’ll take). The sheer number of players and variables has increased multiple times from what it was w/Ireland. Maybe it’s like going from regular checkers to that three-dimensional version. The whole Fatah-Hamas drama playing out is a good example of that on a micro-level but it also goes to what others have written about the immature level of nation-building in that region. Which really when you think about it is so absurd, given the length of time they’ve lived in their. That’s what occupation does – for any people – Arabs or Jews.
3.I do believe over time that the settlement question can be eliminated – the settlements with that. I’ve never been a supporter of the settlements but a few of them are actually critical to commerce in the West Bank. There has been great integration of Israeli Arabs into Israel and they fear Palestinian rule as much as Israeli Jews.
4. So I hope that Mitchell uses the strength that Israel has in its Arab population to see what fits. I’d read that Shibley Telhami was being considered for something in the Obama administration – he is a Christian Arab Israeli but the town he grew up in is mostly Druze. Interestingly, a number of the more public faces of Israel in the US (at its consulates) are Druze Israelis and Christian Arabs – just read an article about that a day or two ago.
5. There is opportunity but frankly, unless and until we have someone who is a 21st century leader for the Palestinians – each faction or as a group – I’m tentative about how far Mitchell will be able to get. Without getting into why it is this way, the growth of the Palestinians as a society is stunted by many factors – and what we have now is not a mature or cohesive group with negotiating skills or understanding. I’m not sure how Mitchell overcomes that or works around it or bolsters it.