This will be a big week to watch as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Israel. Here’s how the Israeli paper Haaretz frames it:
The visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Israel this week may give an early indication of any disagreements on the Palestinian issue between the United States and the next Israeli government. In an interview on Friday with Voice of America, Clinton said she would emphasize her country’s commitment to a two-state solution.
Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has been sticking to his ambiguous stance on the Israeli-Palestinian process. In an interview in the Washington Post on Saturday, Netanyahu did not confirm or deny a belief in the two-state solution. “Substantively, there is broad agreement inside Israel and outside that the Palestinians should have the ability to govern their lives but not to threaten ours,” he said.
Which leaves the door open to either harmony or less than that:
Clinton said the administration wanted to help Israel and the Palestinian Authority work toward a permanent agreement leading to an independent, sustainable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. She said the United States sought internal Palestinian reconciliation, but any national unity government would have to maintain the conditions of the Quartet: recognizing Israel, abiding by previous agreements and forsaking violence.
Netanyahu also told the Washington Post that he will continue talks with the PA, seeking to strengthen the Palestinian security forces and develop the West Bank’s economy. He said he would lead a special ministerial committee on the issue, adding that “economic progress is no substitute [to political progress], but in Northern Ireland it was an unbelievable facilitator for the Good Friday agreement and others that followed.”
Stay tuned later in the week….
h/T to the new news aggregator Cut to the News.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.