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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A U.S. peace envoy’s suggestion that Washington could penalize Israel financially to force it to make concessions to the Palestinians drew Israeli ire.
“Under American law, the United States can withhold support on loan guarantees to Israel,” George Mitchell said on U.S. television after being asked about the kind of pressure that could be brought to bear on Israel.
Over the past two decades, Israel has received U.S. guarantees covering billions of dollars in loans, underwriting that has enabled it to raise money overseas more cheaply.
Although such guarantees have slipped in importance and Mitchell made clear in the U.S. public television interview that no sanctions against Israel were being considered, his remarks added more discord to Israeli relations with President Barack Obama’s White House.
NETANYAHU PUTS BLAME ON PALESTINIANS
In a statement late on Saturday “in reaction to media inquiries after Mitchell’s interview,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office blamed the Palestinians for a peacemaking impasse which the envoy, due back in the region later this month, has been unable to break.
“Everyone knows that the Palestinian Authority refuses to renew peace talks, while Israel took significant steps to restart the process,” the statement said.
LIEBERMAN (OURS) AND MCCAIN REACT
Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, visiting U.S. Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain rejected Mitchell’s remarks.
“Any attempt to pressure Israel, to force Israel, to the negotiating table by denying Israel support will not pass the Congress of the United States,” said Lieberman, an independent.
Republican Senator McCain, who lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama, added: “We disagree, obviously, with that comment and I am sure that you will see the administration in the future say that is certainly not the administration’s policy.”
Israeli media seized on Mitchell’s remarks as reminders of a low point in U.S.-Israeli relations — President George Bush’s withholding of $10 billion in guarantees in 1991 after Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir refused to freeze settlement expansion.
“Mitchell’s threat,” said the main headline of Israel’s mass circulation Maariv newspaper, which described the envoy’s comments as a “bombshell.”
Obama and Netanyahu have clashed over the president’s demand — since softened — that Israel halt all settlement activity on land captured in the 1967 war, in line with a 2003 U.S.-backed peace ‘road map’ that also called on the Palestinians to rein in militants.
Nabil Abu Rdaineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, rejected the accusation that the Palestinians were to blame for a lack of progress toward a statehood deal.
“Israel continues settlement building in violation of the road map.”
Asked about Mitchell’s remarks, Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz called US loan guarantees a “token of friendship” but said Israel had no plans to use those available for 2010 and 2011.
In 2002, the United States provided a package of $9 billion in loan guarantees. The package included a formula that deducts a dollar of guarantees for every dollar Israel spent on settlement building.
As of December 15, Israel still had $3.148 billion of the guarantees available after issuing $4.1 billion in bonds backed by the United States and a $1.1 billion deduction for settlement building and concerns over the barrier Israel is building in the West Bank.
(YNET) – Ahead of Mitchell’s visit, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman is also in Washington.
Clinton’s aim is to recruit Egypt to host a possible meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in which a resumption of direct negotiations will be declared.
The secretary of state Hillary Clinton said after meeting with her Jordanian counterpart: “We are working with the Israelis, the (Palestinian Authority), and the Arab states to take the steps needed to relaunch the negotiations as soon as possible and without preconditions.”
Clinton and Judeh said that resolving those matters first would eliminate Palestinian concerns about continued construction of Jewish settlements in disputed areas. They said negotiations should begin as soon as possible and be bound by deadlines.
Some U.S. military and Israeli negotiations don’t fail …
And who bought them? American pension administrators?
Thanks Oui for putting this latest incident in the IP conflict on stage.
I really believe that Obama silence regarding Mitchell’s remarks on the Charlie Rose Show is the most significant aspect of this new quasiposition in the US’s promotion of two states.
Israel, or should I say, Likud, has no interest whatsoever in two states, and it must be assumed that Netanyahu believes he can outsmart the new president. Likud’s interest is in achieving the Greater Israel concept that it has held since M. Begin accelerated the colonization of Palestinian lands. But it so foolish. Apartheid is so inevitable if Netanyahu doesn’t stop the bandwagon. He’s such an ass, to put Israel in this position. The propaganda no longer works, and Apartheid will inevitably break through American news censorship and bias and show Israel for what it is, at least today.
Netanyahoo is not really about out-smarting Obama. He just has to humiliate him and the AIPAC funded members of Congress will do the rest.
So we have noticed, from that Lieberman-McCain delegation now in Israel.
Israel just has far far too much influence in US politics.
Sanctions mentioned finally! They built an aresenal of nukes ages ago. Trying to do that in any other country in the ME and watch sanctions descend like some sword of damacles or even worse a bunch of child maiming bombs. They have basically colonised others land for aeons. Now try doing that if you happen to be some other ME state. Or try even arresting one of your own people for a polticsal crime and watch the outrage unless you are Israel when you can deny rights to your own people – now what was the illegally kidnapped dude who outed their nuke program’s name – or even worse just indiscriminately massacre people of a different culture. Now tell me what country on the middle east or anywhere else in the world could have gotten away with that for a slong as Israel without even a slap on the wrist excluding vast superpowers that is.
My level of understanding is barely a fraction of Oui’s knowledge of this issue but I’m not necessarily ill-suited to performing analysis of the large-scale psychological dynamics of this subject.
What strikes me about this issue is its similarity to the dynamics in the US during the Cold War. A particular interest of mine is feedback loops, and we saw an Iron Triangle develop between weapons’ manufacturers, Congress & the Executive, and the public during the Cold War. Comparisons have been drawn between protection rackets and Iron triangles, and the key factor in my mind is how opinion is shaped by fear, which is then used to justify arms expenditures and military actions that in turn exacerbate international problems, which in turn justifies more of the same. In their entirity, the actions of the military-industrial complex formed a positive feedback loop upon the problem of international relations between the US and the Soviet Union.
The iron triangle in the case of Israel is formed between many of the same interests as in the Cold War one but with Israeli interests and factions substituted for some of the US ones. An important distinction is the fact that it crosses domestic political boundaries and forms a proxy relationship between Israel’s conflicts and decision makers in the US.
There’s little prospect for a change in Israel’s policies as long as the current lucrative arrangement exists. Just as with the US during the Cold War, the various members of the iron triangle are better off now than if they actually pursue peace.
The area of the problem that concerns me is how public opinion becomes captured by demagogues. Public opinion is only part of the problem, however, since influence over our political process is fairly easily achieved just as it is for any well-funded special interest. And reaching the level of public outcry for solutions to the problem is extremely difficult in the face of a sophisticated propaganda machine trained on the US, and the chance of opinion coalescing around a demand for peace is unlikely given the lack of opinion leadership from politicians.
Finally, someone has described this type of relationship as political capture bonding. Another metaphor would be addiction.
I have some more comments on this issue but a furry, four-legged friend wants my chair right now.