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Israel’s settlement offer ‘still short,’ Clinton says

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, right, Kuwaiti Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Mohammed al-Salim al-Sabah, center, and Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia attend a meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, on Monday. PHOTO: AFP

In the face of Arab criticism of the administration’s recalibrated Middle Eastern peace tack, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday moderated her praise for Israel’s offer to restrain building settlements in Palestinian areas.

While Israel was moving in the right direction in its offer to restrict but not stop the settlements, Clinton said its offer “falls far short” of US expectations. She repeated, however, that it reflected a potentially important step forward for Middle East peace.

Clinton said her earlier praise of Israel’s offer, during a stop in Jerusalem, had been intended as “positive reinforcement.” But that comment drew widespread criticism from Arab countries, which interpreted it as a softening of the US position on settlements.

In a sign of US eagerness to calm Arab concerns about the US position on settlements, Clinton extending her trip by one day to fly to Cairo to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today, her staff announced. She had been scheduled to return to Washington yesterday.

Clinton’s comments in Jerusalem on Saturday appeared to reflect a realization within US President Barack Obama’s administration that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will not accept a full-scale settlement freeze and that a partial halt may be the best lesser option. Her appeal on Saturday seemed designed to make the Israeli position more palatable to the Palestinians and Arab states.

During a photo-taking session on Monday with her Moroccan counterpart, Clinton was asked by a reporter about the Arab reaction, and she responded by reading from a written statement that appeared designed to counter the skepticism about the Obama administration’s views on settlements.

“Successive American administrations of both parties have opposed Israel’s settlement policy,” she said. “That is absolutely a fact, and the Obama administration’s position on settlements is clear, unequivocal and it has not changed. As the president has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”

Clinton’s tweaking of her remarks appeared to satisfy at least some of the Morocco meeting attendees.

“We have heard her say something completely different from that statement in line with previous statements, so we are happy that such a position was highlighted and brought back to the right line and right now we will see how things will go,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said. “We completely appreciate the sincere efforts made by President Barack Obama and his team to take this issue as a top priority and to try to deal with it from day one.”

Clinton also called on the Israelis to do more to improve “movement and access” for Palestinians and on Israeli security arrangements. She said, however, that Israel deserved praise for moving in the right direction.

“I will offer positive reinforcement to either of the parties when I believe they are taking steps that support the objective of reaching a two-state solution,” she said.

Meanwhile, Clinton told a forum in Marrakesh yesterday that the US would deliver on Obama’s promise of a “new start” with Muslims by offering programs on entrepreneurship, economic development and education.

The programs include a US$76 million project to help increase economic opportunities in Yemen, a US$30 million project for vulnerable young people in Jordan and an entrepreneurship summit in Washington next year to bring Muslim innovators together with US business leaders.

Clinton’s speech was billed as a follow-up to Obama’s June address in Cairo in which he promised to seek a new start in the US’ troubled relations with the Islamic world.
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