Madam Secretary’s Middle East
By ROGER COHEN
NYT
LONDON — I like the look of President Barack Obama’s new Middle East envoy, a person with broad experience, the trust of Israelis, growing support among West Bank Palestinians and a fierce personal conviction that a peace accord is essential not only for the parties but for United States national security.
The surprise appointment reflects the need to bring maximum heft to U.S. mediation efforts at a time when Obama himself, major international powers and the Palestinian government led by Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad have all set a target of achieving Palestinian statehood by the second half of 2011.
You missed the announcement? Well it was made so quietly, more through osmosis than anything, that overlooking the change was easy. So here’s the administration’s Middle East shift: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken charge.
Oh, I know, George Mitchell, the special envoy who has labored since early 2009, endures. But the heavy lifting is now in Clinton’s hands. Officials in Washington, Jerusalem and Ramallah tell me that the secretary of state will lead what her husband recently called the attempt to “finish Rabin’s work.”
(More here.)
NYT
LONDON — I like the look of President Barack Obama’s new Middle East envoy, a person with broad experience, the trust of Israelis, growing support among West Bank Palestinians and a fierce personal conviction that a peace accord is essential not only for the parties but for United States national security.
The surprise appointment reflects the need to bring maximum heft to U.S. mediation efforts at a time when Obama himself, major international powers and the Palestinian government led by Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad have all set a target of achieving Palestinian statehood by the second half of 2011.
You missed the announcement? Well it was made so quietly, more through osmosis than anything, that overlooking the change was easy. So here’s the administration’s Middle East shift: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken charge.
Oh, I know, George Mitchell, the special envoy who has labored since early 2009, endures. But the heavy lifting is now in Clinton’s hands. Officials in Washington, Jerusalem and Ramallah tell me that the secretary of state will lead what her husband recently called the attempt to “finish Rabin’s work.”
(More here.)
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