Washington, October 24: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered President Barack Obama a downbeat report on Thursday on his administration’s so-far frustrated efforts to forge Middle East peace.
Clinton met the president in the Oval Office to deliver a keenly anticipated progress update on the Obama team’s efforts to entice Palestinians and Israelis to overcome issues preventing a return to deadlocked peace talks.
The President has made the issue a cornerstone of his evolving foreign policy, and cajoled hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to join him at a summit last month in New York.
But despite the efforts of Obama, Clinton and Middle East envoy George Mitchell, the administration has had few breakthroughs to savor, and Israelis and Palestinians seem as estranged as ever.
“The secretary advised the president that challenges remain as the United States continues to work with both sides to relaunch negotiations in an atmosphere in which they can succeed,” an Obama administration official said.
Clinton did stress that some minor progress had been achieved, but added that much work needed to be done by both sides, the official said, on condition of anonymity.
“The Palestinians have strengthened their efforts on security and reforming Palestinian institutions, but they need to do more in these areas and on stopping incitement and preventing terror,” the official said.
“Israelis have facilitated greater movement for Palestinians and responded to our call to stop all settlement activity by expressing a willingness to curtail settlement activity.
“But they need to translate that willingness into real, meaningful action and do more to improve the daily lives of Palestinians. And both sides need to move forward toward direct negotiations.”
The official said that Mitchell will return to the Middle East in the near future to continue talks, while Clinton would consult Arab foreign ministers in Morocco on November 2 and 3.
Obama has been trying to get Netanyahu’s hardline government to agree to a complete freeze on settlement expansion on the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and for the Palestinians to take steps to improve Israeli security.
Another senior official said on condition of anonymity that there had been “some progress” in the quest to get Israelis and Palestinians back together, but admitted “I wouldn’t say that a deal is close.”
Earlier on Thursday, US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice made a quiet visit to the West Bank.
Rice held closed-door meetings with Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad and Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), but did not make any public statements.
All Jewish settlements are illegal under international law because they are built on Arab land (mainly Palestinian), illegally occupied by Israel.
Around illegal 200,000 Jewish settlers are estimated to have moved into the dozen or so Israeli settlements in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
There are about 300,000 more illegal Jewish settlers currently living in settlements the Palestinian West Bank.
The settlers adhere to radical ideologies and are extremely violent to almost-defenceless Palestinians.
Palestinian East Jerusalem has been under illegal Israeli occupation since 1967.
Under international law, neither East nor West Jerusalem is considered Israel’s capital. Tel Aviv is recognised as Israel’s capital, pending a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.
East Jerusalem is considered by the international community to be illegally occupied by Israel, in contravention of several binding UN Security Council Resolutions.
In these resolutions, the United Nations Security Council has also called for no measures to be taken to change the status of Jerusalem until a final settlement is reached between the sides.
Declaring Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is an attempt to change this status, and is thus a violation of these Security Council resolutions.
—Agencies