Obama: Mideast peace envoy to engage "vigorously"

[zelta gaisma]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama vowed on Monday that his new Middle East envoy George Mitchell would engage vigorously in the quest for Israeli-Palestinian peace and expressed confidence he would achieve concrete results.

Wading quickly into Middle East diplomacy, Obama dispatched Mitchell, a veteran international trouble-shooter, to tackle a conflict the new president's predecessor George W. Bush had been widely criticized for neglecting for much of his tenure.

"The cause of peace in the Middle East is important to the United States and our national interests. It's important to me personally," Obama said after a White House meeting with Mitchell, who was due to head to the region later on Monday.

"The charge that Sen. Mitchell has is to engage vigorously and consistently in order for us to achieve genuine progress. When I say progress -- not just photo ops but progress that is concretely felt by the people on the ground," Obama told reporters.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE50P4S120090126

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COOL Obama is actually interested in DOING something instead of looking pretty for the cameras!

[struggle4progress]

1. Resurgent right dashes peace hopes as Mitchell flies to Israel (The Independent)

Polls predict election triumph for Netanyahu as Gaza war whips up jingoism
By Patrick Cockburn in Jerusalem
Tuesday, 27 January 2009

... Benjamin Netanyahu, who did much to bury the Oslo peace accords when he was last prime minister in 1996-99, will almost inevitably be the next prime minister, according to the latest opinion polls. His right-wing Likud party is likely to be the largest party, and the right-wing bloc of extreme religious and nationalist parties is likely to have a majority in the Israeli parliament. Mr Netanyahu would probably have won without the war in Gaza, but the conflict has shifted Israelis significantly to the right. "Prior to the war there was already disillusionment with negotiations and the peace process," says Galia Golan, political science professor at the Interdisciplinary Centre at Herzliya, near Tel Aviv. "Patriotism and nationalism were whipped up as never before by the media who treated the war as if it was one of the wars when we were really under attack" ...

Senator Mitchell is the most powerful politician ever sent by Washington to talk to Israel and the Palestinians. The former Democratic Senate majority leader, his reputation as a peace-maker established by his successful mediation in Northern Ireland, wrote an even-handed report, promptly ignored by the Bush administration, after the start of the second intifada in 2000, calling, among other things, for a complete halt to Israeli settlement building on the West Bank ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/resurgent-right-dashes-peace-hopes-as-mitchell-flies-to-israel-1516806.html

[struggle4progress]

2. Time for Israelis and Palestinians to return to talks: Obama (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President Barack Obama told Israelis and Palestinians it was time to return to the negotiating table, as he dispatched his new special envoy George Mitchell on a debut tour of the region.

The US president, a week after his historic inauguration, cautioned however that he did not want expectations raised too high of swift progress in the volatile region, following the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.

"I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realize that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people," Obama told Al-Arabiya television network.

"Instead, it's time to return to the negotiating table" ...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i7WQT6SOMC2oCloHKfs_abr-9icQ