US President Barack Obama dispatched his vice president to the Middle East yesterday to try to build support for reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks despite deep skepticism on both sides.
US Vice President Joe Biden will meet Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders starting today, but a main component of his trip will be public diplomacy — reassuring anxious Israelis about Obama’s commitment to their security while explaining why they should be willing to make concessions for peacemaking.
Biden, who will be the most senior US official to visit Israel since Obama came to office in January last year, faces a tough sell, Israeli officials and analysts say.
Obama may enjoy superstar status in other parts of the world, but not in Israel.
Many Israelis are distrustful of the president’s outreach to the Muslim world, a priority he highlighted with high-profile visits to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and, later this month, to Indonesia.
“If Israel is supposed to make sacrifices for a peace deal, the Israeli public has to be convinced it is receiving sufficient support from the US,” an Israeli official said, calling Biden’s visit the beginning of that process.
US-Israeli tensions flared over Obama’s early push for a complete Jewish settlement freeze, although his administration has at least temporarily backed off, embracing a more limited moratorium on new building. Other differences remain over next steps and the scope of renewed talks with the Palestinians.
Iran is another sore point for many Israelis, who see Obama’s focus on diplomacy and targeted sanctions to curb Iran’s nuclear program as wishful thinking.
Before Biden’s visit, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the case to Israel against taking military action against Iran, a message the vice president is likely to echo.
“A strike [by Israel] could be as destabilizing as Iran getting a nuclear weapon,” one US official said, adding Israeli leaders “are very aware of our concerns.”
An Israeli official said the Americans had made clear Israel “doesn’t have a military option without US clearance and we don’t have clearance at this time.”
US and Israeli officials said the main source of discord on Iran for the time being was over the scope of future sanctions, rather than the pros and cons of military action.
The Israeli official said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will meet Biden during his visit, was “disappointed” by the sanctions proposed thus far by the US. “This is not what we’ve been promised,” he said.
Asked if that meant Netanyahu would seek a US green light for striking Iran, another senior Israeli official said: “We’re not there yet … This is the time to act on sanctions and it is premature to discuss anything else.”
Israel has called for imposing “crippling” sanctions. Washington wants them to be targeted against hard-liners and is wary of broad-based penalties that could destabilize the Iranian economy as a whole and alienate its people.
Biden is not expected to take part in indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks that would be spearheaded by Obama’s special envoy, George Mitchell, and could be announced during his visit, although he will be briefed on them.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese