08:55 pm
Saturday Surprise: A Breakthrough in the Middle East?
Not to put too fine a point on it: Holy Crap.
Via the apparently sleepless and time-off-less Laura Rozen:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
__________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release September 19, 2009Statement from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs
On Tuesday, September 22, President Obama will host a trilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The trilateral meeting will be immediately preceded by bilateral meetings between President Obama and the two leaders. These meetings will continue the efforts of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Special Envoy George Mitchell to lay the groundwork for the relaunch of negotiations, and to create a positive context for those negotiations so that they can succeed.
“It is another sign of the President’s deep commitment to comprehensive peace that he wants to personally engage at this juncture, as we continue our efforts to encourage all sides to take responsibility for peace and to create a positive context for the resumption of negotiations,” said Special Envoy Mitchell.
Wow. Talk about close-hold. I don anyone sawcoming. Just earlier this week there were several articles suggesting that the negotiations were stalled and that nothing was going to happen soon (sorry — posting quickly; will try to get the links up later). So much for that theory.
If George Mitchell actually is the one pulling this off (and assuming that it actually leads to something more than another faux deal), think about what that means: he will go down as one great — if not the greatest — peacemakers of our time. First Northern Ireland, and now this. And with little fanfare and even less attention.
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