george mitchell

Contrary to nearly a year of stern insistence from the Obama administration that Israel refrain from all growth in occupied Palestinian territory — an insistence that frayed with a recent comment by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the administration has tried to walk back — Israel has announced the construction of 900 new [...]

Buried within Joe Klein’s new Time profile (great first line, by the way) of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton:
The Israelis have been difficult, as always: whenever [Special Envoy George] Mitchell raises East Jerusalem in talks with the Israeli Foreign Minister, the Israeli stands up and walks out of the room.
Is there any cost to [...]

The AP has obtained a memo written by the non-Hamas wing of the Palestinian national movement:
“All hopes placed in the new U.S. administration and President Obama have evaporated,” said the document issued by Fatah’s Office of Mobilization and Organization. The department is headed Fatah’s No. 2, Mohammed Ghneim.

Expect a lot of discussion about what’s realistic for the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process. Also, if Laura Rozen didn’t break this story at the Cable, then she was thinking it, anyway.

A big cross-section of the American Jewish community’s leadership met with President Obama today at the White House, from J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami on the left to Abraham Foxman on the right. Obama talked about a lot more than Israel, Palestine and Iran, including domestic issues like health care as well. You can read all [...]

President Obama’s Israel/Palestine envoy, George Mitchell, is heading back to the Mideast. Why?
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the purpose of Mr. Mitchell’s trip is “to advance the goal of the two-state solution and comprehensive peace in the region,” and that he would be discussing “next steps” toward that end.
At which point Israel Prime Minister [...]

Excellent rundown from James Besser in the Jewish Week about the coterie of Christian and Jewish peace-process rejectionists ready to support Benjamin Netanyahu, the peace-process-rejectionist now running the show in Israel:
“There’s a kindred spirit between Christian Zionists and Netanyahu,” said the Rev. James Hutchens, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian group. “He has demonstrated [...]

Sure, sure, it’s the economy that people want to hear about. But, you know, it wouldn’t have hurt President Obama or the press corps to have talked about foreign policy. There was a question on the Mexico border violence 24 minutes in; Obama said he won’t send the National Guard right now but he reserves [...]

Coming on the heels of Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry’s nomination to become ambassador to Afghanistan, Ambassador  Chris Hill, most recently the Bush administration’s extremely-well-regarded North Korea troubleshooter, is set to succeed Ryan Crocker as ambassador to Iraq, The Washington Post reports.

Here’s an interesting story from The Washington Post about what key Obama administration officials and would-be officials make of potential openings to Iran, notwithstanding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s demand for a U.S. “apology” for past crimes. The article quotes a recent paper by Dennis Ross, who hasn’t yet been officially announced as the State Department’s [...]