Obama working to divide Israel

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Obama pledges state to Palestinian leader

Follows report Democrat confided he supports dividing Jerusalem

Posted: November 18, 2008
5:14 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

JERUSALEM – President-elect [Barack, Obama today phoned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and pledged to work to establish a Palestinian state as soon as possible, a senior PA negotiator told WND.

"Obama expressed his full support for a Palestinian state. He told the president (Abbas) he will continue to promote the peace process, which will end with a two-state solution," said the PA's second most senior negotiator, Saeb Erekat.

"Obama said he will keep working in collaboration with the Israeli government and PA to reach a final solution. He said he'll do everything in his power to help create a Palestinian state as soon as we can," Erekat told WND.

It was the first phone call between Abbas and Obama, Erekat added.
Obama's transition spokesman Nick Shapiro did not immediately return a WND e-mail and phone request seeking comment.

The call comes two weeks after a reported flair-up on Election Day in which a senior Palestinian official told WND the Obama campaign urged Palestinian officials to deny an Arab media report that the then-Democratic nominee confided to Palestinian leadership that he supports their right to a capital in eastern Jerusalem.

The episode began after a Lebanese newspaper story Nov. 3 quoted sources in Ramallah who claimed that in a meeting in July with Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the two heard from Obama "the best things they ever heard from an American presidential candidate."

The report in the Al-Akhbar daily, known to have close contacts to Palestinian leaders in Lebanon, claimed Obama told Abbas and Fayyad he "supports the rights of the Palestinians to east Jerusalem, as well as their right to a stable, sovereign state," but he petitioned them to keep the remarks confidential.

Asked for comment by WND, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat at the time would neither confirm nor deny knowledge of Obama's purported remarks. Abbas political adviser Namer Hamad subsequently issued a denial to reporters.

But a senior official confirmed to WND that Obama said in a July trip to the region he favored a "negotiated settlement" that may grant the PA control over sections of Jerusalem.

The official, a longtime reliable source, claimed to WND that Obama advisers on Election Day engaged in a series of intense conversations asking that Abbas' office issue a denial.

The Lebanese report echoed a similar exclusive WND article immediately following Obama's meeting with Abbas and Fayyad in which a senior Palestinian source said Obama informed the Palestinians he supports a "negotiated settlement" that may grant the PA control over sections of Jerusalem.

"He assured us there was a misunderstanding when he said in [June] he supports the Israelis' rights to hold on to Jerusalem," the PA official, who took part in the meeting with Obama, told WND at the time. "He told us he corrected this right away and that he supports a negotiated settlement that will give the Palestinians territory."

The official was referring to a speech Obama delivered in June to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in which he stated if he is elected president, "Jerusalem would remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided."

Immediately following the speech, Obama reversed himself during a CNN appearance, explaining he meant Jerusalem shouldn't be physically divided with a partition.

"Well, obviously, it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations," he said in response to a question about whether Palestinians have a legitimate claim to the city.

Obama said that "as a practical matter, it would be very difficult to execute" a division of the city.

"And I think that it is smart for us to, to work through a system in which everybody has access to the extraordinary religious sites in Old Jerusalem but that Israel has a legitimate claim on that city."

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Well this might shed light on some motives...

Monday, January 19, 2009
OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Guess who claims personal access to Obama
President-elect long minimized ties to radical Palestinian activist

Posted: January 19, 2009
9:35 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily


Rashid Khalidi

JERUSALEM – Even as Barack Obama becomes the 44th president of the United States, anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalidi, whose ties to Obama stirred controversy during the campaign, has stated he could currently communicate with the incoming commander in chief, WND has learned.
Amid concern within the pro-Israel Jewish community, Obama repeatedly had denied he was influenced by Khalidi.

In an interview with the radical Democracy Now! news network last week, Khalidi expressed hope Obama would alter U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, talking to "all sides" of the Israeli-Palestinian arena. He also criticized Israel for killing civilians in the Gaza Strip the past few weeks and for leading what he termed a "propaganda campaign" to de-legitimize the Hamas terrorist organization.

Khalidi was asked whether he could speak now to Obama, and within his reply stated, "I could."

"You knew him? Can you speak to him? Can you talk to him now? Do you have access to President Obama, or President-elect, for the next few days?" Khalidi was asked by interviewer Amy Goodman.

Khalidi replied: "I mean, I was – we were his neighbors. We lived in the same neighborhood. We were colleagues at the University of Chicago. We saw each other quite frequently. I could – I mean, it is not easy to reach a president. The cocoons, the layers, are quite formidable.


He went on to accuse Israel of "mov[ing] over, in effect, the bodies of women and children" during the Jewish state's campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

"They have carried out one of the most brilliant propaganda campaigns I have ever seen, long before this began. The dehumanization of the Palestinians and the demonization of Hamas laid the groundwork for this. They did what I call 'clearing the crime scene before the crime' by removing all witnesses," Khalidi stated.
Speaking about Obama's foreign policy, Khalidi said "there will be a change in policy."

"I mean we're already seeing it insofar as Iraq is concerned. I think we hopefully will see it in other areas. No, there will be a change. The question is how far. And enormous change is needed. I mean, everything we've been doing over not just the past administration – it's easy to criticize George Bush – but what has been done over several administrations has been fundamentally mistaken. And I don't know how radical a turn he is going to be able to make, even if he's willing and desirous of doing so.

"He managed to deliver himself of pronouncements about Mumbai and about the economy," Khalidi continued. "The only thing he said about Gaza was humanitarian, and he's concerned about the casualties. I am more hopeful that once he is president, he will speak very directly to all the parties, not just to Israel, but also to the Egyptians and also to the Palestinian Authority. I hope he will change American policy. I think the important thing is when he's president and when his team is in place, which it is not yet. The people who will actually execute whatever policies are decided at the top have not yet been chosen."

Close ties
WND broke the story of Obama's ties to Khalidi one year ago.

WND also exposed that Khalidi is a top director for an organization that has a long and intertwined history with the Palestine Liberation Organization, including while the PLO was one of the world's foremost terrorist organizations. He has spoken to the media apparently as a PLO representative, but has long denied he worked for the PLO.

At a campaign stop in a Florida synagogue last May, Obama claimed his relationship with Khalidi was limited to "conversations."

"You mentioned Rashid Khalidi, who's a professor at Columbia," Obama said. "I do know him, because I taught at the University of Chicago. And he is Palestinian. And I do know him, and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisers; he's not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy."

Continued Obama: "To pluck out one person who I know and who I've had a conversation with who has very different views than 900 of my friends and then to suggest that somehow that shows that maybe I'm not sufficiently pro-Israel, I think, is a very problematic stand to take," he said. "So we gotta be careful about guilt by association."

But the Obama-Khalidi relationship goes much deeper.
According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003, while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.

Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi.
Amid a number of anti-Israel speeches, Obama offered a glowing testimonial in praise of Khalidi at a 2003 farewell dinner, marking the professor's departure from the University of Chicago for a new teaching position at Columbia University. In the remarks, Obama spoke about his many talks with Khalidi.

An article in April in the Los Angeles Times documented how at the Khalidi farewell dinner one young Palestinian American recited a poem in Obama's presence that accused the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticized U.S. support of Israel.

Another speaker, who reportedly talked while Obama was present, compared "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, the Times reported.

Obama himself said his talks with the Khalidis served as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. … It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation – a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

When Obama served alongside Weathermen radical William Ayers on the board of Woods Fund, a liberal Chicago nonprofit, the group in 2001 provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, for which Khalidi's wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.

The AAAN, headquartered in the heart of Chicago's Palestinian immigrant community, describes itself as working to "empower Chicago-area Arab immigrants and Arab Americans through the combined strategies of community organizing, advocacy, education and social services, leadership development, and forging productive relationships with other communities."

The AAAN has sponsored several anti-Israel events, such as a Palestinian art exhibit, titled "The Subject of Palestine," that featured works related to what some Palestinians call the "Nakba" or "catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948.

Another AAAN initiative, titled, "Al Nakba 1948 as experienced by Chicago Palestinians," seeks documents related to the "catastrophe" of Israel's founding.

A post on the AAAN site asked users: "Do you have photos, letters or other memories you could share about Al-Nakba-1948?"

In a possible Obama-Khalidi link, in May WND noted Obama termed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a "constant sore" in an interview just five days after Khalidi wrote an anti-Israel opinion piece in the Nation magazine in which he called the "Palestinian question" a "running sore."

Speaking in February in a joint interview with WND and the John Batchelor radio show, Khalidi was asked about his 2000 fundraiser for Obama.

"I was just doing my duties as a Chicago resident to help my local politician," Khalidi stated.

Khalidi said he supported Obama for president, "because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause."

Khalidi also lauded Obama for "saying he supports talks with Iran. If the U.S. can talk with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there is no reason it can't talk with the Iranians."

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President Obama Does First Formal TV Interview as President with Al-Arabiya
January 26, 2009 6:29 PM
As special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell heads off to the region to begin work on negotiating a cease fire between Israel and the Palestinians, President Obama has sat for his first formal TV interview with the Arabic cable TV network Al-Arabiya, ABC News has learned.

The interview was taped this evening and is set to air at 11 pm ET, as Mitchell is in the air and on his way to the region.

Based in Dubai, Al-Arabiya estimates that it has a potential audience exceeding 23 million in the Gulf region.
-- jpt

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FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Obama hails 'anti-Israel' Arab plan
Initiative includes massive concessions, erosion of Jewish character

Posted: January 27, 2009
4:22 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

JERUSALEM – Following scores of denials he would trumpet the plan, President Obama today hailed a so-called "Saudi Peace Initiative," which offers normalization of ties with the Jewish state in exchange for extreme Israeli concessions.

Defenders of Israel warn the plan would leave the Jewish state with truncated, difficult-to-defend borders and could threaten Israel's Jewish character by compelling it to accept millions of foreign Arabs.

WND was first to report last November advisers to then-presidential candidate Obama gave positive reception in meetings with Arab diplomats to the Saudi plan – but the reports were strongly denied by Obama's campaign.
Today, in an interview with an Arab television network – his first formal interview as president – Obama trumpeted the Saudi initiative:

"Well, here's what I think is important. Look at the proposal that was put forth by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. ... I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage to put forward something that is as significant as that. I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace. I do think that it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what's happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Obama said he "believes" that there are "Israelis who recognize that it is important to achieve peace. They will be willing to make sacrifices if the time is appropriate and if there is serious partnership on the other side."

In November, WND quoted a top Arab diplomatic source stating Obama advisers held meetings with Arab countries in which the Saudi Initiative was "very present."

The source said in most cases it was the Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, that stressed the importance of the plan. He said Obama's advisers expressed a positive attitude toward the plan, but he stopped short of confirming a London Times article that claimed Obama would make the plan a central part of his Mideast policy.

Then-senior Obama Mideast adviser Dennis Ross flatly denied the Times report, which quoted a source close to Obama stating that the president-elect intended to throw his support behind the Arab plan. Ross is now Obama's Mideast envoy.

One senior Obama adviser was quoted telling the Times that on a visit to the Middle East last July, Obama said privately to the Palestinian leadership it would be "crazy" for Israel to refuse the Saudi Initiative, which Obama purportedly said could "give them peace with the Muslim world."

Although Ross denied Obama would trumpet the Arab plan, Israeli President Shimon Peres told the British in November that in conversations he held with the president-elect, Obama proclaimed himself "very impressed" with the the Saudi plan, which was ratified by the Arab League. Peres was responding to questions about whether he thought Obama would advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in general and the Saudi plan in particular.

Initiative threatens Jewish state
The Saudi Initiative, originally proposed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2002, states that Israel would receive "normal relations" with the Arab world in exchange for a full withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip, West Bank, Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem, which includes the Temple Mount.

The West Bank contains important Jewish biblical sites and borders central Israeli population centers, while the Golan Heights looks down on Israeli civilian zones and twice was used by Syria to mount ground invasions into the Jewish state.

The Saudi plan also demands the imposition of a non-binding U.N. resolution that calls for so-called Palestinian refugees who wish to move inside Israel to be permitted to do so at the "earliest practicable date."

Palestinians have long demanded the "right of return" for millions of "refugees," a formula Israeli officials across the political spectrum warn is code for Israel's destruction by flooding the Jewish state with millions of Arabs, thereby changing its demographics.

When Arab countries attacked the Jewish state after its creation in 1948, some 725,000 Arabs living within Israel's borders fled or were expelled from the area that became Israel. Also at that time, about 820,000 Jews were expelled from Arab countries or fled following rampant persecution.

While most Jewish refugees were absorbed by Israel and other countries, the majority of Palestinian Arabs have been maintained in 59 U.N.-run camps that do not seek to settle its inhabitants elsewhere.

There are currently about 4 million Arabs who claim Palestinian refugee status with the U.N., including children and grandchildren of the original fleeing Arabs; Arabs living full-time in Jordan; and Arabs who long ago emigrated throughout the Middle East and to the West.

According to Arab sources close to the Saudi Initiative, Arab countries are willing to come to an agreement whereby Israel absorbs about 500,000 "refugees" and reaches a compensation deal with the PA for the remaining millions of Palestinians.

Obama advisers back Arab plan
Some top Obama current and former advisers have recently endorsed the Arab Initiative. The Times referenced a partisan group of senior foreign policy advisers who urged Obama to give the Arab plan top priority immediately after his election victory, including Lee Hamilton, the former co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Democratic former national security adviser. Brent Scowcroft, a Republican former national security adviser, also joined in the appeal.

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Obama 'guarantees' West Bank Withdrawal

Palestinian officials rejoice at 'new tone' of White House

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
February 02, 2009

JERUSALEM – The Palestinian Authority received a guarantee from President Obama's administration that understandings reached with Israel during U.S.-backed negotiations while President Bush was in office would be utilized as starting points for current and future talks with the Jewish state, top PA officials told WND.

With new general Israeli elections scheduled for next week, the move could limit the incoming Israeli prime minister, since the PA can point to points of agreement during previous talks between Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The PA officials, speaking on condition their names be withheld, said they were enthusiastic about the new tone of the White House and about recent meetings with Obama's Mideast envoy, former Democratic Sen. George Mitchell. They said they believe that under Obama the Palestinians can extract from Israel concessions reaching "much further" than during talks held under the previous administration.

"Regarding all understandings achieved between the parties, the Obama administration told us they will give guarantees to carry them out," said a top PA official.

"With Obama, the number of settlers to be removed from the West Bank will much be more important than 60,000," said the PA official, referring to previous negotiations in which Israel expressed a willingness to withdraw from up to 94 percent of the West Bank and move about 60,000 settlers into central settlement blocks closer to Jerusalem.

WND reported exclusively in November that then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice collected notes and documents from Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams to ensure the incoming U.S. administration would not need to start negotiations from scratch. PA sources said Rice's notes are being used by Obama's team as the starting points for new Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Documents noting agreements during previous Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been used in subsequent talks, sometimes as starting points. According to both Israeli and PA sources, American officials took detailed notes of talks at U.S.-brokered negotiations at Camp David in 2000 and then used points of agreement on key issues, such as borders, during recent rounds of intense Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Israeli and PA sources said Rice's notes document agreements that would seek an eventual major West Bank withdrawal and would grant the PA permission to open official institutions in Jerusalem.

A top source said the PA requested that the Obama administration threaten sanctions against Israel for any new Jewish construction in the West Bank.

The source told WND that Obama is said to favor Israel withdrawing from nearly the entire West Bank.

Israel recaptured the West Bank in the 1967 Six Day War. The territory, in which about 200,000 Jews live, is tied to Judaism throughout the Torah and is often referred to as the biblical heartland of Israel

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Feb 11, 2009 16:53 | Updated Feb 12, 2009 6:04
Obama Administration worried over prospect of right-wing gov't

By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, THE JERUSALEM POST, WASHINGTON

US officials are publicly taking a wait-and-see approach to the formation of a new Israeli government, but privately many have expressed concern that Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu might preside over a right-wing coalition.

"There would be great unease" at the prospect of such a government, said one Capitol Hill source.

He predicted that a governing coalition of parties from the Right could embolden the left flank of the Democratic party and turn up pressure, particularly in the US Congress, to pass measures that made clear demands on Israel.

He distinguished, however, between a Netanyahu-led right-wing coalition and Netanyahu-led national unity government.

Despite the Likud's second-place finish to the centrist Kadima party, parties on the Right won more of the vote, which means Netanyahu might have an easier time forming a hawkish coalition but could try to work out a formula for a unity government, as could Kadima head Tzipi Livni.

The Capitol Hill source, who didn't want to be identified speaking about another country's internal politics, noted that Netanyahu had made a strong effort to reach out to the Obama administration and made the case to the US and the Israeli public that he could work with the White House.


US President-elect Barack Obama and opposition leader Binyamin Netnyahu in Jerusalem, July 2008.
Photo: AP

He said that attitude could help assuage US concerns when presented in a national-unity package, whose positions - whether under Netanyahu or Livni - would be more in line with the US's own policies of engagement on Arab-Israeli reconciliation.

"The hope is that there is a government that is really committed to peace with the Palestinians," The Washington Post quoted one senior administration official saying.

Even if Netanyahu prevails, the official added, "he's grown over the years. Getting back to the talks with the Palestinians is really the only solution."
Ron Dermer, a senior adviser to Netanyahu, said Wednesday that the Likud leader strongly preferred to put together a national-unity government that looked toward the center of the country's political spectrum rather than a right-wing coalition.

"He's said his biggest mistake when he was prime minister last time was not reaching out to Shimon Peres," who then headed the Labor party, Dermer said on a conference call with the United Jewish Communities and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "I do not believe he will make the same mistake this time.

"I very much hope that Tzipi Livni will put politics aside" to sit in a Likud-led government, Dermer added.

Still, many political analysts say there's no doubt the Obama administration would prefer to see a national-unity government headed by Livni.

"The impression in Israel is that the Obama administration has already made its preference known and that its preference is for Kadima - and that impression isn't going anywhere," said Georgetown University professor and Israel expert Michael Oren.

"They'd rather work with a centrist government than a right-wing government."

He added that the preference of the Obama camp, with its interest in intensive diplomacy, was "legitimate," noting that many Israelis preferred Republican presidential candidate John McCain because they observed a greater alignment of views.

When it comes to Livni, the administration sees someone who has spent the last year working with the Palestinians as part of a negotiating process and made the two-state solution an important part of her campaign, while Netanyahu has been much more circumspect on the extent of his support for that formulation, focusing his campaign on the need for security.

And while Netanyahu did sign agreements that gave control of West Bank areas to the Palestinians as prime minister in the late '90s, he had a troubled relationship with many of the American officials who served under then president Bill Clinton, several of whom are returning to office under Obama.

Dennis Ross, Clinton's Middle East envoy and likely to be a top regional representative, described Netanyahu as "overcome by hubris" after his first election to the premiership and recalled him being "nearly insufferable, lecturing and telling us how to deal with the Arabs" in his book on the Oslo peace process.

Still, publicly US officials are welcoming the Israeli democratic process and indicating their readiness to work with whoever becomes prime minister.

"This is a choice these Israeli people will have to make. Once that new government is formed, regardless of who is in that government, we will work with that government," said US State Department Acting Spokesman Robert Wood on Wednesday.

"We look forward to working with that new government once it's formed. We have a robust agenda with the government of Israel, as you know. And so we're looking forward to getting down to business with the new government."

When questioned about whether a government with right-wing leadership would hurt American peace efforts, Wood responded, "We certainly hope that a new government will continue to pursue a path to peace. I see no reason to think that a new government would do something otherwise."

He added that he knew of no change to Middle East envoy George Mitchell's plans to make his second visit to Israel at the end of the month.

"The administration is being very cautious," said an Israeli official about the silence from US officials right now.

He noted that regardless of their views, they understood that they could have to work with both leaders and didn't want to prejudice either relationship.

Oren said the US leadership had done better at keeping a lid on its feelings than many previous US and Israeli governments.

"This administration is more constrained and more controlled in saying whom they prefer," he said.

He added that if the US expressed its preference for Livni too loudly, it could backfire and hurt her position. He compared the situation to the boost in the polls Israel Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman received from the police's pursuit of corruption charges, since some of his supporters felt he was being unfairly targeted.

"It could boomerang, just like Lieberman picked up [support] from the police investigation," he said.

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Clinton: There will be a Palestinian state, Jerusalem will be its capital

Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Israel Today Staff



Just hours after blaming Hamas and other terror groups for the lack of peace in the region, visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled that while it may recognize the source of the obstruction, that won't stop the Obama Administration from pushing for the rapid creation of a Palestinian Arab state.

Clinton told reporters in Jerusalem that she and President Barack Obama plan to be "vigorously engaged" in bringing about the birth of "Palestine," adding that "there is no time to waste."

That is likely to put Clinton and Obama at odds with incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has refused to commit to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, and instead wants to focus on bettering the economic conditions under which the Palestinian Arabs live.

Netanyahu met with Clinton on Tuesday, and indicated in remarks to the press that the two had found some common ground. However, few expect relations between the Obama and Netanyahu governments to be smooth.

On Wednesday Clinton all but guaranteed that her government will clash with Netanyahu's when she suggested in a joint press conference with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that for Washington, the division of Jerusalem is a foregone conclusion.

Speaking to reporters in Ramallah, Clinton said she was not pleased with the Jerusalem municipality's plans to demolish 80 Arab homes on the city's eastern side that were built without proper permits.

"Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the 'road map'," said Clinton. "It is an issue that we intend to raise with the government of Israel and the government at the municipal level in Jerusalem."

Israel, of course, officially rejected those parts of the "road map" peace plan that attempted to equate Israel's sovereignty over the eastern half of Jerusalem to its settlement-building activity in the rest of Judea and Samaria.

Clinton's remarks suggested that the Obama administration does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the eastern half of Jerusalem any more than it does in the so-called "West Bank."

Observers argued that she also legitimized lawlessness on the part of eastern Jerusalem's Arab populations by suggesting that they are not subject to the authority of the Jerusalem municipality.

In related news, Jerusalem police officials confirmed to WorldNetDaily and Israel National News this week that Palestinian Authority police forces are being permitted to operate on the outskirts of the Israeli capital.

Israeli police have given Palestinian police the green light to take over public security in Arab villages and neighborhoods on the eastern edges of Jerusalem, and Israeli Jews have been warned to now steer clear of those areas.

A growing number of Israeli politicians, including Avigdor Lieberman of the supposedly ultra-right-wing Israel Beiteinu Party, have of late embraced the idea of surrendering the Arab areas of eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority.

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Israel rejects US-led negotiations: Two-state solution 'has no validity'

Thursday, 2 April 2009

Far-right politician Avigdor Lieberman stunned diplomats in his first speech as Israel's foreign minister yesterday when he rejected the past year of US-led negotiations and said the principle of a two-state solution “had no validity”.

Mr Lieberman reinforced fears that his government will steer the country in a more hawkish direction when he added that concessions to Palestinians would be “mistaken”. The remarks contradicted Israel's previous commitments agreed at the Annapolis conference in 2007, and drew an immediate response from Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the US National Security Council, who emphasised that the US was “committed to the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace and security”.

Expectations had been raised that Mr Lieberman would seek to soften his image, and that the new hardline government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu would avoid alienating the international community.

Mr Lieberman's speech came a day after Mr Netanyahu offered the Palestinians self-rule in place of the statehood that had at least rhetorically been on offer under agreements sealed under the leadership of Ehud Olmert at the Annapolis conference.

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Apr 1, 2009 15:59
Upon taking office, Lieberman says concessions will invite war

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Israel's new foreign minister has said he opposes his predecessor's peace talks with the Palestinians over the past year and warns that making concessions will only invite war.

Avigdor Lieberman delivered his criticism during a handover ceremony at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. It was his first speech since taking office.

Lieberman's predecessor Tzipi Livni interrupted the speech to disagree with him, and Israeli diplomats shifted uncomfortably in the room as he spoke.

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Netanyahu warned on Palestinian peace talks

By Tobias Buck and Roula Khalaf in Ramallah
April 2 2009 03:00

The new Israeli government was warned yesterday that a refusal to continue serious peace negotiations intended to establish a Palestinian state could force the Palestinian Authority to dissolve itself.

The warning, by a senior PA official, came only a day after Israel's new rightwing government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, took office. It also came as Israel's new foreign minister said the government did not feel obligated by the commitments made during the US-sponsored Annapolis peace initiative.

Rafik Husseini, chief-of-staff of Mahmoud Abbas, PA president, said: "If Netanyahu or his government continue to do what the Israeli government has done even more vigorously, the consequence is the practical end of the Palestinian Authority as a structure."

Mr Husseini argued the Palestinians faced a government that encouraged the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and refused to endorse a two-state solution. "No Palestinian leader can continue to do peace when the objective of the Israeli state - as stated by its government - is the complete opposite of peace," he added.

The PA was formed by the Oslo peace accords in 1993 as a quasi-government to prepare for Palestinian statehood. "If the PA cannot deliver [on the promise of an independent state] it has to change direction," Mr Husseini said.

Mr Netanyahu has vowed to continue peace talks with the PA, as well as with neighbouring Arab states. However, he has so far declined to endorse a two-state solution - the cornerstone of all recent efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Instead, the new prime minister has offered to focus on what he calls "economic peace" - raising the living standards of Palestinians while continuing, at least for the time being, the Israeli occupation. Mr Netanyahu said on Tuesday he would aim for a final accord with the PA under his tenure. While he spoke of "selfgovernment" for the Palestinians, the prime minister again stopped short of backing an independent state.

In a further sign of the government's break with the policies of the previous administration, Avigdor Lieberman, foreign minister and leader of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, said he did not feel bound by the US-sponsored peace effort launched in Annapolis in 2007.

He said the Annapolis conference - at which the Israeli and Palestinian leaders committed themselves to the formation of a Palestinian state - had "no validity", since no document was ratified by the Israeli government or by parliament.

Mr Husseini's comments, in an interview with the Financial Times, reflect concern among Palestinian and international leaders about the course of the new Israeli government.

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11:13 02/04/2009
Assad: By war or peace, we will liberate the Golan

By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Tags: Israel News, Syria

Syrian President Bashar Assad is escalating his rhetoric against Israel, vowing that "the day in which we will be liberated [on the Golan] is at hand - by peace or war."

Assad told the Qatari newspaper A-Sharq in an interview published on Thursday: "This enemy does not want peace. What is the alternative? The parallel route to the peace process is resistance. The Israeli will not come by his own will, so there is no alternative but for him to come from fear."

In his first public statements since assuming his post this week, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was cool to continued peace talks with Damascus.

"There is no cabinet resolution regarding negotiations with Syria, and we have already said that we will not agree to withdraw from the Golan Heights," Lieberman said. "Peace will only be in exchange for peace."

The Syrian leader added that future generations will veer towards resistance against occupation, namely terrorist attacks and violence, and away from peace. Time, Assad said, is working in favor of the Arabs rather than Israel.

Assad was taken aback when asked why Syria, which supports Hezbollah's military activities in southern Lebanon, refuses to open a direct front against Israel on the Golan Heights.

He replied that suicide bombers only embark on their mission when they believe in the justness of their cause, not when they are persuaded to do so.

"As for resistance on the Golan, there are objective circumstances, especially since in most of the Golan there are no civilians because all of them were expelled from there in 1967," Assad told A-Sharq.

"Resistance comes about when there is no state infrastructure that is gearing up towards liberating the land, and in our country the army and the economy are slated for liberation," Assad said.

Assad's comments follow a pattern of similar statements he has made in recent weeks. While insisting that he will be ready to hold negotiations with any government in Israel, including that of Benjamin Netanyahu, he is conditioning those talks on an Israeli statement declaring its readiness to withdraw from all of the Golan Heights. The alternative, he warned, will be violence.

Assad on Monday urged Arab leaders convened in Qatar for a regional summit to reject a 2002 Saudi peace initiative, as Israel had demonstrated that it was not a "real partner" to peace.

"The real aim of Israel's recently elected government is against peace and that the composition of the incoming cabinet is a clear, unsurprising message to us," Assad said.

"We Arabs, since we offered the Arab initiative, do not have a real partner in the peace process," he told the leaders.

Assad's speech suggested Assad still hopes for talks but was taking a tougher tone to confront what he expects to be a hard-line stance from Netanyahu's government coalition, dominated by right-wing parties.

Last month, Assad told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Ehud Olmert agreed to withdraw from all of the Golan Heights during indirect peace talks with Damascus.

Assad said Israel and Syria were within "touching distance" of clinching a peace agreement.

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Assad: We Support Hizbullah, Will Take Golan

Reported: 11:29 AM - Apr/02/09

(IsraelNN.com) President Bashar Assad defended his country's relationship with Hizbullah and promised to take the Golan by peace or war in an interview published by the Kuwait newspaper a-Sharq.

"Hizbullah has an issue with Israel and we have the same issue,” he said. “We therefore support the organization. We are speaking about a national organization with a religious agenda that acts in the framework of the Lebanese homeland. We see here a national party.”

About the Golan, Assad said, "There is no escaping the fact that the day will come when we will free the Golan, through peace or through war. When a citizen loses hope, he will turn to the path of resistance in one from or the other." He addressed Israel’s new government, saying, "All Israeli governments are the same: Ariel Sharon carried out a massacre in Palestine, and Barak aided the war in Gaza such that there is no difference between Right and Left in Israel."

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Israeli FM rules out any withdrawal from Golan

Posted: 02 April 2009 2002 hrs

JERUSALEM: Israel's new Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman ruled out in an interview published on Thursday any withdrawal by the Jewish state from the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria.

"There is no cabinet resolution regarding negotiations with Syria, and we have already said that we will not agree to withdraw from the Golan Heights," Lieberman told the Haaretz daily.

"Peace will only be in exchange for peace," he said.

The interview came a day after firebrand Lieberman said the new government led by hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not bound by the US-backed agreement to relaunch peace talks with the Palestinians reached in 2007 at the Annapolis, Maryland conference.

The Golan Heights is a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed in 1981, a move not recognised by the international community.

Syria, which technically remains in a state of war with Israel, wants the territory back as part of any peace deal with the Jewish state.

Israel and Syria conducted indirect talks last year via Turkey, but these were stopped at the end of December when Israel launched a devastating war in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Israel's former prime minister Ehud Olmert said recently that the two sides were on the brink of starting direct negotiations.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Monday that Arabs "do not have a real partner in the peace process" in the Netanyahu government.

- AFP/ir

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Last update - 02:31 08/04/2009

U.S. giving Palestinian security forces top-level training

By Avi Issacharoff

Tags: Palestinian security forces

The United States has been training senior Palestinian security officials in an advanced officers course in Ramallah for top-brass, Haaretz has learned. The new course, entitled "senior leaders' course," is a two-month long program conducted in Ramallah with the assistance and supervision of the U.S., and is part of the project overseen by the U.S. security coordinator in the territories, Gen. Keith Dayton. So far, the program has produced 80 graduates divided into two 40-student classes. A third class, made up of commanders from the Palestinian National Security - the largest security force with 15,000 members, tasked with policing borders, providing military intelligence, military police services and presidential security - is currently being trained in Jordan. That class is undergoing special training by Jordanian instructors under American auspices. Most students so far have been army lieutenant colonels and colonels, but the course also accepted commanders from the civilian police, the general intelligence service, the preventative security force and the civilian defense authority.

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Before talks with Netanyahu, Obama to meet Jordan king

By Akiva Eldar,

Haaretz Correspondent King Abdullah of Jordan is to visit the White House at the end of the month to urge U.S. President Barack Obama to move ahead with the Arab peace initiative. Abdullah would be the first Middle East leader to meet with Obama in Washington, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A Jordanian source told Haaretz that the king would assure Obama of Jordan's commitment to a two-state solution, and would encourage him to support a united Palestinian government.

Abdullah has recently criticized the lack of progress in talks toward a final-status agreement, Israel's settlement policy and the destruction of Arab homes in Jerusalem. He has sought international intervention on these matters.


Abdullah has also expressed disappointment that the Israeli cabinet has not discussed the Arab peace initiative, of which Jordan is a key supporter.

Over the weekend, the Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat quoted senator and former Jordanian prime minister Marouf al-Bakhit as saying that if Palestinian interests required it, all Arab countries might declare that there is no Israeli partner for peace.

American presidential envoy George Mitchell is to arrive in the region this week for the third time. Mitchell's staff will set up permanent offices in East Jerusalem.

The recommendation of a committee headed by Mitchell calls for a complete freeze on construction in the settlements, including for natural increase, and a dismantling of all outposts built since March 2001.

In an article last year for the U.S./Middle East Project at the Council on Foreign Relations, Frederic Hof wrote that American efforts toward implementing the committee's report could have stopped the deterioration of the situation in the territories and spurred dialogue between the parties. Hof was the Mitchell Committee chief of staff at the beginning of the decade.

Mitchell believed that in light of the mutual mistrust between Israel and the Palestinians, nothing would happen if the United States did not firmly lead the process, Hof wrote.

Hof, who is to be appointed one of Mitchell's four deputies on Sunday, will apparently be put in charge of the Israel-Syrian track. In a recent opinion paper, Hof presented a model for a peace agreement in which much of the Golan Heights would be declared a nature reserve open to Israelis during the day.

His basic assumption is that an agreement will have to satisfy the Syrians' territorial demands and satisfy Israel on security issues, including Syria's links to terror groups.

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Mitchell's Message: 'We Want a PA State'

by Hana Levi Julian

(IsraelNN.com) United States Middle East envoy George Mitchell warned Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday that America will not budge from its commitment to carving out a new Palestinian Authority state from within Israel's current borders.

Mitchell, who arrived in Israel Wednesday evening, made the comment after he met for the first time with Lieberman in his new role as foreign minister.

Lieberman raised eyebrows earlier in the month when he stated that the Netanyahu government would not be bound by decisions made in Annapolis in November 2007, noting they had never been ratified by the government, nor had they been approved by the Knesset.

"The U.S. policy favors a two-state solution, which would have a Palestinian state living in peace alongside with the Jewish State of Israel," Mitchell told reporters following the meeting.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai commented that regardless of what the new administration of U.S. President Barack Obama might want, Israel could not be forced down a path that might be unrealistic.

"The preferable course of diplomatic action at this time is two economies for two peoples, and not two states for two peoples," Yishai told reporters. "The American emissary also knows that forcing the region into virtual diplomatic discourse will only breed the opposite results."

The U.S. envoy is scheduled for meetings throughout the day with Israeli officials; Wednesday night he met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and before meeting with Lieberman had already held talks with President Shimon Peres.

Peres, too, informed MItchell that while Israel has always been interested in achieving peace in the region, it would not be at the expense of her own security.

The issue of weighing Israel's security against America's interests in the region is not new; it has also become an increasingly sensitive topic in high-level discussions over how to deal with the Iranian nuclear development threat.

The Hebrew-language daily Yediot Acharanot reported Thursday that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told an American Jewish leader that a PA state would be forced down Israel's throat by the end of Obama's term, regardless of which government rules.

"In the next four years, there will be a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, based on 'two states for two peoples,' and we couldn't care less who the prime minister is," Emanuel was quoted as saying.

The newspaper also reported that the Obama administration that the U.S. would not help Israel neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat unless Jerusalem agrees to a disengagement in Judea and Samaria.

The paper reported on a "Bushehr for Yitzhar" plan -- meaning the U.S. would swap its help in neutralizing the Bushehr nuclear reactor and other installations in exchange for Israel destroying the Samarian Jewish community of Yitzhar and approximately 170 other neighboring towns.

Despite Israel's urgent warnings that time is running out, the U.S. has committed itself to an unlimited time frame on negotiations with the Islamic Republic over its uranium enrichment program, even as it continues apace.

Israeli and other Western intelligence officials are convinced that Iran is working toward development of an atomic weapon, despite its denials.

Mitchell is slated to meet later in the day with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Opposition leader MK Tzipi Livni. On Friday he will head to Ramallah for talks with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad before moving on to Cairo and Riyadh.

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Abbas to Mitchell: Israel must accept two-state solution

Middle East News
Apr 17, 2009, 13:14 GMT

Ramallah - The new Israeli government must accept the establishment of a Palestinian state and cease all settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, or resuming peace talks will be 'almost impossible,' a top Palestinian official said Friday.

Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Abbas conveyed this demand in an 'in-depth' and 'comprehensive' parley in Ramallah with US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell.

Mitchell made his first visit to the region since the new government of hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office in March.

Abbas reiterated to Mitchell the Palestinian commitment to both the 2003 'road map' and the Annapolis understandings, Erekat told reporters in the central West Bank city after the parley.

The Netanyahu government has said it is bound only to the road map, but not to the Annapolis understandings of November 2007.

While both call for the establishment of a Palestinian state eventually, the internationally-sponsored road map lists a hosts of confidence building measures the sides must take before negotiating all of the core issues of the their mutual conflict and reaching a final peace deal.

Abbas also protested Israeli plans to demolish some 88 Palestinian houses in occupied East Jerusalem.

'Israel should accept the two-state solution, cease all settlement activities including that of natural growth and end its measures in Jerusalem. Without this the peace process will be almost impossible,' Erekat said.

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FRIDAY 17 APRIL 2009

Plan for Palestinian State Is "Dead End," Israel Tells US

Thursday 16 April 2009
by: Dion Nissenbaum
article original @ McClatchy Newspapers

Jerusalem - In a direct challenge to President Barack Obama's commitment to rejuvenate moribund Mideast peace talks, Israel on Thursday dismissed American-led efforts to establish a Palestinian state and laid out new conditions for renewed negotiations.

Leaders of Israel's hawkish new government told former Maine Sen. George Mitchell, the special U.S. envoy, that they aren't going to rush into peace talks with their Palestinian neighbors.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he'd require Palestinians to accept Israel as a Jewish state in any future negotiations - a demand that Palestinians have up to now rejected - Israeli government officials said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Obama's envoy that past Israeli concessions led to war, not peace.

These were Mitchell's first meetings with Israeli leaders since Netanyahu's center-right government took power two weeks ago.

Palestinian leaders have said they won't open peace talks with Netanyahu's government until it agrees in principle to the idea of a two-state solution and imposes a freeze on building Jewish housing in the West Bank.

As expected, Mitchell made it clear that the Obama administration sees the two-state solution as the foundation for future talks.

"U.S. policy favors - with the respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - a two-state solution, which would have a Palestinian state living in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel," Mitchell said before meeting with Lieberman.

Netanyahu has refused to embrace that formula and has instead floated the idea of offering Palestinians limited rights that would fall short of independence.

Netanyahu reiterated his stand in his meeting with Mitchell, said one Israeli government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to publicly discuss the details of the conversation.

Netanyahu also indicated that Palestinians would have to accept Israel as a Jewish state in negotiations.

"For us, this is a crucial element," the official said. "It's a fundamental element in peace talks."

In recent years, Israeli leaders have been pushing this demand as a way to ensure that the nation retains its Jewish identity. However, compelling Palestinians to accept the idea would all but require them to abandon their demands that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to homes they abandoned when Israel was established in 1948.

Yossi Alpher, a former official with Israel's Mossad spy agency and a co-founder of the bitterlemons.org Middle East political Web site, said that Netanyahu's conditions could be a poison pill that prevents any peace talks from getting under way.

"The position he took today cannot in any way generate a peace process," Alpher said. "The Palestinians are not going to offer him this recognition. It could be a deal-breaker, but it could be an opening gambit. It's too early in this whole new process to tell."

Mitchell also faced resistance from Lieberman, an ultranationalist Israeli leader who began his tenure as foreign minister by declaring the death of the U.S-led peace talks that then-President George W. Bush launched in November 2007.

Lieberman told Mitchell that 15 years of faltering peace talks with Palestinians "brought neither results nor solutions," the foreign minister's office said after the meeting.

Real stability, Lieberman said, would require an American focus on preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, who sought to quash growing concerns that Israel might attack Iran if international diplomacy fails, echoed that sentiment.

"Wide international cooperation must be created on the Iranian issue but, at the same time, all the remarks about a possible attack on Iran by Israel are not correct," Peres said. "The solution with Iran is not military."

Peres called 2009 "a decisive year in the Middle East. We do not have time to waste."

Mitchell will meet Friday with Palestinian leaders, who are expecting the Obama administration to put more pressure on Israel to negotiate seriously.

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Israelis feel chill as US sets out new ground rules

Jason Koutsoukis Herald Correspondent in Jerusalem
April 18, 2009

CAN Israel still call the United States its best friend? Not if you believe the media in Israel.

The increasingly tense dialogue between the US President, Barack Obama, and the new Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has taken on all the trappings of a duel here.

Almost every day brings news of another sore point, blighting the once warm relationship between the two countries.

Anyone could be forgiven for thinking the most immediate threat to national security in Israel lay across the Atlantic. That Mr Obama uses almost every opportunity he gets to set the parameters of a final peace agreement between Israel and Palestine is bad enough.

But now officials in his administration are openly using Israeli anxiety at Iran's nuclear program as a bargaining chip to force its hand on giving up control of the West Bank Palestinian territory.

No less a figure than the White House chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel, was quoted this week laying down the law: if Israel wants US help to defuse the Iranian threat, then get ready to start evacuating settlements in the West Bank, he was reported to have told Jewish leaders in Washington.

This from a man whose father fought with a militant Zionist group, the Irgun, and whose appointment had provided such reassurance to Israeli officials.

Talkback radio blazed with fury across the country the same day as Israelis protested that no American official had the right to tell them where they could live. Then on Thursday came the news that Mr Netanyahu's planned first meeting with Mr Obama in Washington next month had been called off.

Mr Netanyahu had hoped to capitalise on his attendance at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington to visit the White House, but Administration officials informed his office that the President would not be "in town".

Sources in Washington added that the Administration would not be continuing the tradition that had developed during the Bush years of hosting Israeli prime ministers whenever they showed up in town, sometimes with just a phone call's notice.

Contrary to initial expectations, Mr Obama has wasted no time becoming fully engaged in the Middle East peace process, despite the magnitude of his domestic political agenda.

While Mr Netanyahu has refused to endorse the principle of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict agreed to by his predecessor, Mr Obama has made it abundantly clear that the US will accept nothing less than Israel living side by side with a sovereign Palestinian state.

Mr Obama is also demanding a freeze on all Jewish settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and has dropped the Bush administration's opposition to Hamas serving in a future Palestinian Authority government.

A prominent Israeli political commentator, Maya Bengal, who writes for the country's second largest selling newspaper Maariv, believes the holiday is over.

"As Passover comes to an end, so comes to an end, it seems, the days of grace granted to the Netanyahu Government by the American Administration," Bengal said.

A Tel Aviv barman, Meir Avraham, 30, recently returned after a trip to Australia, said he could feel the tensions being played out between the US and Israel on the street.

"If we lose America, then we are alone. So we must listen to what America wants," he said. "But really I think this is more about the little brother testing the limits of the big brother than a real conflict between Israel and the US."

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "We know Obama wants to change the relationship, make it seem less cosy but they also want to protect its special nature. We'll all still be friends."

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America and Israel
Ties that bind
Apr 20th 2009 | JERUSALEM
From Economist.com

Israel's new government is weighing up relations with America

AVOID a confrontation with the new American administration. That is what Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, sought to persuade his prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, on Sunday April 19th. Rather, said Mr Barak, turn up in Washington, DC, next month with your own Israeli peace plan. This should recognise the Palestinians’ right to an independent state but only subject to stringent limitations and qualifications in the interests of Israel’s security.

Mr Barak delivered his lecture on Sunday at a meeting of Israel’s new “kitchen cabinet”—Mr Netanyahu, Mr Barak and the new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman—convened as part of an ongoing review of policy on peace and the Palestinians.

The defence minister’s remarks came in leaked driblets from the secret consultation. Publicly Mr Barak, the leader of the Labour Party, has been careful not to criticise or dissent from Mr Netanyahu, who heads the more rightist Likud. By the same token, Mr Netanyahu has been unwontedly reticent on his own views and plans, for fear of prematurely ventilating differences with the Obama administration.

The prime minister is apparently still loth to embrace the two-state solution and abandon his election platform, which spoke of “economic peace” as distinct from full political peace between two equal states. In leaks of his own last week, Mr Netanyahu aired the demand that the Palestinian Authority accepts Israel’s self-definition as “the Jewish state”. In local diplomatic casuistry, that would imply the Palestinians’ renunciation of the “right of return” of their refugees.

The prospect of a showdown with a new American administration, which fills rightist Israelis with trepidation and at least some leftist ones with hope, has arisen every four years since the occupation began after the 1967 war. It has never materialised. Despite ups and downs, relations between the superpower and its unruly client have grown steadily closer over the decades. Efforts by all the successive American administrations to stop Israeli settlement building in the Palestinian areas have been resisted or ignored.

Speculation this time has focused on the fact that Mr Netanyahu made tentative plans to visit Washington, DC, early in May, but the White House let it be known that the president would not be available. Mr Netanyahu then indicated that his government had embarked on a policy review. His visit is now expected to take place towards the end of next month. By then, however, Barack Obama will have received Jordan’s King Abdullah and got an earful about the Netanyahu government’s recalcitrance.

A particular target of Arab ire is Mr Lieberman, leader of a Russian-immigrant party, Yisrael Beitenu, which campaigned on an anti-Arab platform and emerged as the third-largest party. After a blustery start, Mr Lieberman seems to be settling into a quieter mode. At the weekend he announced the appointment of a young Israeli-Arab diplomat as a member of his inner staff.

Mr Obama’s peace envoy to the region, George Mitchell, a former Senator, admonished Israelis and assured Palestinians last week that “two states” remained the bedrock of American policy. He made a point, in his public pronouncements, of describing Israel as the Jewish state, but there is plainly no interest on the American side in seeing this issue of nomenclature become a big obstacle between Israelis and Palestinians. Mr Barak urged Mr Netanyahu not to make Palestinian recognition of Israel’s Jewishness a precondition for negotiations. Mr Netanyahu has said that he would not.

When Messrs Obama and Netanyahu do meet at last, some observers expect America’s president to push for a “grand bargain” involving American and international pressure on Iran in return for Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. Mr Netanyahu, more than any other Israeli politician, has been ominously outspoken since the mid-1990s on the existential threat to Israel, as he sees it, of Iran’s attaining nuclear weapons. Mr Obama’s policy of attempting dialogue with Teheran worries some Israeli policymakers. But there is also a growing awareness here that the policy’s success, as well as the strength and effectiveness of Sunni Arab opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, may hinge on America’s ability to show substantive progress on Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peacemaking.

Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.