US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday as new strains between the two allies over Jewish settlements cloud hopes for further peace talks.
Ahead of the meeting, US President Barack Obama and Clinton led global criticism of Israel’s latest plans to build 1,300 houses in occupied east Jerusalem, where the Palestinians wish to form the capital of their future state.
Netanyahu dismissed the international response as “overblown,” with his office saying on Tuesday there was “no connection between the peace process and the planning and building policies in Jerusalem.”
Peace talks ground to a halt in September shortly after their launch when a 10-month Israeli moratorium on West Bank settlement construction expired, with the Palestinians refusing to talk until the ban is reimposed.
This week’s announcement prompted Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday to call on the UN Security Council to urgently debate Israeli settlement building, again complicating the US task.
Warning against “unilateral steps” and expressing “deep disappointment” with the Israeli move, Clinton nevertheless sought to remain upbeat as Washington struggled to keep peace talk hopes alive.
“We still believe a positive outcome is both possible and necessary,” she told a press conference in Washington.
Obama has made kick-starting the deadlocked Middle East peace process a central plank of his foreign policy and Clinton refused to give up hope.
“I remain convinced that both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas want to realize the two-state solution,” Clinton said.
Netanyahu said he was going to discuss with Clinton “how to move towards a broad understanding of an agreement with the Palestinians and perhaps others in the Arab world based on security.”
According to a senior Israeli official, the prime minister will raise “the need to reach broad understandings between Israel and the United States on Israel’s security needs in a peace agreement.”
Netanyahu has insisted Israel will maintain a military presence along the eastern border of the future Palestinian state.
Aaron David Miller, a Middle East expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, said Netanyahu was likely to remain defiant.
The prime minister is determined “to make it unmistakably clear to the Americans that Jerusalem was never a part of this understanding and will not be a part of it in the future. There’s no question that he’s prepared to stand his ground,” Miller said.
Netanyahu believes that the Obama administration will not make settlements a “make or break issue” as they prefer to focus on the details of a future peace -agreement, Miller said.
“The administration got itself on the wrong track by concentrating on settlements and not on dealing with the core issues, and now they are boxed in,” Miller said.
In Jerusalem, visiting US Senator John Kerry warned that the moment for Middle East peace was in danger of slipping away.
“The window of opportunity for a comprehensive peace is closing, narrowing is the best way to put it,” he told reporters at a meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres. “This is a moment for statesmanship, it is a moment to try and define the opportunities and move forward rapidly.”
Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Wednesday he had urged both sides to keep their “eye on the prize” and not let Middle East peace slip through their grasp.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the