Obama ME Policy: New Setback Losing Abbas [Updated]

[Update 2009-11-06 1:00 AM PST by Oui]

BREAKING NEWS: Fort Hood Shooting A Palestinian Issue?

(Roanake Times) – Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is the son of Palestinian immigrants and Vinton residents Malik Awadallah Hassan and Hanan Ismail “Nora” Hasan. Both parents are deceased.

Nidal M. Hasan graduated from Virginia Tech in biochemistry in 1995 and served in the ROTC. He served eight years as an enlisted soldier. Hasan earned his rank of major in April 2008, according to a July 2008 Army Times article.

Troubling portrait of Fort Hood shooting suspect emerges

Hasan was a lifelong Muslim and attended a mosque in Silver Spring, Md. On a form filled out by those seeking spouses through a program at the mosque, Hasan listed his birthplace as Arlington, Va., but his nationality as Palestinian.

U.S. hope dims for high-level Israeli-Palestinian talks over state

CAIRO — The Obama administration has concluded that an early resumption of high-level negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians over a Palestinian state is unlikely in the near future — an acknowledgment that it has fallen short, for now, on one of its major initial foreign policy goals.

“We recognize that things have stalled,” Clinton spokesman P.J. Crowley said. “We’re looking at a variety of ways that increase interaction between the parties in some form.” He described the proposals as “baby steps” that would eventually “create a momentum of their own, and the effort can pick up steam. If there’s a vacuum, there are lots of spoilers willing to take advantage . . . . We’ve too often in the past seen events spiral into violence.”

NETANYAHU CALLING THE SHOTS STALLING PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD

Netanyahu has used the baby-steps formulation to argue that cooperation on economic development and other issues would be more effective than “top-down” negotiations. Such cooperation is underway in some areas, particularly West Bank security, but Palestinians have been hesitant, in general, about the approach for fear that it would delay discussion of more basic issues such as borders.

Just six weeks ago, President Obama attempted to jump-start direct talks with a clarion call to action. “Permanent status negotiations must begin, and begin soon,” he said in a United Nations speech. “It is past time to talk about starting negotiations. It is time to move forward.”

The Arab-Israeli conflict in pictures (The Guardian)

…
In her conference remarks Tuesday morning, Clinton referred to Obama’s well-received speech to the Islamic world in Cairo last summer, saying that the administration is “determined and persistent in pursuit” of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. But she appeared to chastise the Arabs for criticizing her support of the Israeli proposal. “All parties should be careful about what we say,” she said, warning that “recriminations . . . [were] understandable, but we have to work together toward a shared goal.”

CLINTON PUTS BLAME OF 2000 FAILURE ON PALESTINIAN LEADERS

In an interview with al-Jazeera television before leaving Morocco, Clinton expressed frustration with years of failure to make progress. Near the end of her husband’s presidency, she said, the two sides “came very close” to agreement. If they had succeeded, she said, “we would not be talking about settlement activity. We would have a Palestinian state. It would have East Jerusalem as its capital. It would be working to further the interests of the Palestinian people.”

Under Netanyahu, Abbas has gone from ‘good Palestinian’ to foe

(Haaretz) – Upon returning to power, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has changed the Israeli attitude toward Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Previous prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert depicted Abbas as “the good Palestinian,” a leader of moderates who are opposed to terror, in contrast to “bad Palestinians” like Yasser Arafat and the Hamas leaders. Abbas was the partner for peace, the interlocutor in a dialogue and a regular guest at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem. Olmert even visited Jericho once, as an expression of esteem for the Fatah leader.

Netanyahu, however, relates to Abbas as a foe who is waging a diplomatic war against Israel. In the premier’s view, Abbas represents the past, the struggle for “Palestinian rights,” the return of the refugees, the Palestinians’ lists of Israeli crimes and endless demands for “justice.”

One Israeli official has referred to Abbas as a “Holocaust denier,” based on his doctoral thesis in 1982, in which he questioned the number of Jewish victims at the hands of the Nazis.

PM FAYYAD JOINS ABBAS AS “PROBLEMATIC”

Netanyahu believed PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad represented a different approach from that of Abbas: trying to improve the present instead of concentrating on the injustices of the past. Fayyad does indeed focus on the creation of an independent Palestine – not on settling accounts from the wars of 1948 and 1967. Netanyahu had hoped that with him, it would be possible to advance economic peace and make progress from the bottom up. Improving the economic situation in the West Bank, and strengthening security coordination between Israel and the PA, were depicted in Israel as manifestations of the success of the new, non-Abbas way.