Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: 'unprecedented' concessions, Clinton says

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/31/AR2009103102460_pf.html
Israel putting forth 'unprecedented' concessions, Clinton says
But Palestinians reject Netanyahu's offer on settlements
By Karen DeYoung and Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 1, 2009
JERUSALEM -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday 
that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had offered 
"unprecedented" concessions on West Bank settlement construction in an 
effort to restart peace talks, a departure from the administration's 
earlier criticism of Israel and a possible signal of impatience with the 
refusal of Palestinian leaders to join negotiations.
At the start of a day of diplomacy that stretched from Abu Dhabi to 
Jerusalem, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas rejected Israel's latest 
offer, relayed by Clinton, to curb most West Bank construction.
The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said the plan would have 
excluded about 3,000 Israeli housing units under construction and would 
not have applied to East Jerusalem -- thus falling well short of what 
has become a firm Palestinian demand for resuming direct talks with Israel.
"The U.S. said that is the best they can get" from Netanyahu, even 
though the Obama administration considers settlements 'illegal and 
illegitimate,' " Erekat said. The Palestinians will not accept a 
resumption of talks on that basis, he said.
At a news conference here Saturday night with Netanyahu, Clinton did not 
comment on the Palestinian account of the talks she had earlier in the 
day with Abbas. She said the differences between the two sides on all 
issues should be negotiated face to face.
Those comments and others seemed to mark a final departure from early 
U.S criticism with Israel over settlements, which ultimately served to 
bolster Netanyahu with the Israeli public even as it raised -- 
unrealistically, as it turned out -- Palestinian expectations that a 
building freeze was in the offing.
The meetings came as the peace process appeared increasingly unlikely to 
achieve President Obama's stated goal of resuming direct 
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations by the end of the year. Clinton's 
objective on this trip seemed less to achieve any real breakthrough than 
to give the impression of continued effort.
But the Palestinian position, if anything, appears to have hardened in 
recent days, leaving Israel to portray itself as the more willing partner.
Abbas, under fire from constituents for previous compromises with the 
United States, the controversy over a U.N. report on alleged Israeli war 
crimes in Gaza and recent Israeli home demolitions in Jerusalem, is 
regarded as having little room to negotiate on the key demand for a 
settlement freeze.
"I think the place to resolve differences of opinion is around the 
negotiating table," Netanyahu said. "We are prepared to start peace 
talks immediately," he said, calling for both sides to "get on with it 
and get with it."
Although she reiterated the administration's position that "all 
settlement activity" must cease, Clinton seemed unwilling to press the 
point as forcefully as she had in the past and joined Netanyahu in 
portraying the Palestinians as the spoilers.
She called for a resumption of talks "without preconditions" and 
suggested that the Palestinian demand for a halt to West Bank 
construction was an unreasonable obstacle.
That marked a change in tone from a trip here in March, when she sharply 
criticized Israeli settlement policies. After her initial public demands 
that Israel stop building in the West Bank, Clinton on Saturday praised 
steps taken by Netanyahu as "unprecedented."
Netanyahu, while demanding that some building in the West Bank continue, 
has said he would not approve any new settlements and would show 
"restraint" in expanding existing ones.
The Palestinians regard the land occupied by about 300,000 West Bank 
settlers as part of a future Palestinian state, and consider continued 
settlement activity an effort to influence negotiations.
Israel promised to halt settlements under previous international 
agreements, and Palestinian officials say they want those promises 
fulfilled.
But "what the prime minister has offered in specifics, of restraint on 
the policy of settlements, of no new starts, for example, is 
unprecedented," Clinton said. The two sides, she said, should sit down 
together so that Netanyahu "will be able to present his government's 
proposal."
Erekat said Clinton communicated the Israeli position in a two-hour 
meeting with Abbas in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, where the 
Palestinian leader had stopped on a regional tour to build Arab support. 
Clinton flew to Israel later in the evening for talks with Netanyahu.
A senior administration official traveling with her also declined to 
comment on the Palestinians' account.
State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley described the U.S. role as that 
of honest broker, saying Clinton and special envoy George J. Mitchell 
were speaking to both sides to help "narrow the gap" between them "to 
where negotiations make sense."
Clinton's stops in Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem were added after she left 
Washington on Tuesday for a seven-day trip -- the first three days in 
Pakistan and the last two to be spent at a conference with Arab leaders 
in Morocco. When the trip was planned many weeks ago, the days in the 
middle were left free for a possible stop in Afghanistan.
That possibility was ruled out when the Aug. 20 Afghan election proved 
inconclusive. The decision to skip Kabul was confirmed when a new 
election was scheduled for Nov. 7.

 But Palestinians reject Netanyahu's offer on settlements
quando ancora gli USA parlavano di bloccare gli insediamenti Nahum
sottolineava con forza come gli yankee dovessero farsi i cazzi propri.
Adesso ha cambiato idea. Ovvero ha pirlato.