Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: un altro successo della politica estera di Obama in Medio Oriente

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-13/george-mitchell-resigns-what-envoys-awkward-exit-signals-for-mideast/
The Awkward Exit of Mideast Envoy George Mitchell
by Daniel Stone
With President Obama about to meet two big allies and make a major
speech on the region, the timing of his special Mideast envoy's
departure couldn't be more uncomfortable. Daniel Stone on why Mitchell
is going—and what it means for Israel and Palestine.
Two days after Barack Obama's inauguration, George Mitchell was named
special envoy for Middle East peace. With the new president standing
beside Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President
Joe Biden took the podium and extolled Mitchell's reputation and
experience having brokered peace in Northern Ireland, calling him an
"outstanding public servant" with "incredible capacity." In the press,
Mitchell was praised as the right man for the job at the right time.
On Friday, though, that capacity had reached its limit, and Mitchell
told his bosses in the West Wing that he'd had enough. His reasons, he
said, were personal—the kind of nebulous rationale that leaves ample
room for interpretation. Unmentioned were the months of frustration
that Mitchell had built up as direct negotiations between Israelis and
Palestinians became more difficult and the peace process further off.
The timing of Mitchell's departure couldn't be more awkward. Obama
will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan's
King Abdullah next week, as well as deliver a major speech on Middle
East policy. But the resignation didn't come as a surprise to those
who worked closest with Mitchell. A State Department official
described to Newsweek a man increasingly annoyed by both parties'
constant moving of the goal posts and the constraints of the
administration's unshakeable political instinct to support Israel.
The strain was noticeable in the Middle East. In a recent interview
with Newsweek, one senior Israeli official said Mitchell often would
say one thing about the direction the U.S. was taking with the two
sides, only to be contradicted by Dennis Ross, Clinton's special
adviser to the region. The official, who did not want to be quoted by
name, said it seemed as if Mitchell had abdicated his role completely
in recent months. Indeed, Mitchell's frequent visits to Israel and the
West Bank slowed to a trickle; his last visit to the region was in
December.
When he was there, officials on both sides of the conflict had voiced
bewilderment at Mitchell's hands-off approach to the complex
negotiating process. With a small staff in Israel, he would shuttle
between Jerusalem and Ramallah to meet with senior advisers to the
leaders of both sides and then leave after just a few days. In an
interview with Newsweek last month, Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas openly accused Mitchell of not doing his job. "Every visit by
Mitchell, we talked to him and gave him some ideas," he said. "At the
end we discovered that he didn't convey any of these ideas to the
Israelis. What does it mean?"
“He wouldn’t be leaving at this important hour if he knew there was
going to be a significant change in the administration’s attitude
toward the peace process,” said Gregory Orfalea.
A politically attuned man who was once Senate Majority Leader,
Mitchell was aware of the complaints about him. His usual comeback was
to point to his success in Northern Ireland, which earned him the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. For hundreds of days, he liked to say,
he was considered a failure, until the final day, when he actually got
it done.
Mitchell's resignation letter set off a small panic inside the West
Wing earlier in the week. Senior advisers, as well as Obama himself,
could sense the increasing difficulty of the job: Administration
officials had been unable to convince Israel to halve new settlements
in the West Bank, alienating Palestinians, and Israelis were irked in
early May when Abbas allied with Hamas, a group that refuses to
denounce violence against Israel. But the symbolism of Mitchell
leaving several days before Obama's biggest week of outreach to the
region projected a vacuum of confidence that anything hopeful, however
remote, was on the horizon.
"He wouldn't be leaving at this important hour if he knew there was
going to be a significant change in the administration's attitude
toward the peace process," said Middle East analyst Gregory Orfalea,
who formerly taught at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service. "He's
leaving because it's status quo."
Mitchell will be replaced—in the interim by his deputy, David Hale—and
another official will take a crack at the quandary. But despite new
momentum from Netanyahu's visit next week and Obama's speech Thursday,
Mitchell's departure could signal stagnant talks for the next several
years. According to Fawaz Gerges, director of the London School of
Economics' Middle East Center, "the reality is that, with Mitchell
leaving, Barack Obama basically lost the ideological battle [over how
to confront the peace process]. By now he'll have to wait for the
second term before you can get another concerted effort."

 administration's unshakeable political instinct to support Israel.
THANKS.

 > described to Newsweek a man increasingly annoyed by BOTH parties'
Bombacci ritiene che l'unico modo per portare pace in Medio Oriente
sia penalizzare Israele adesso, per poterlo cancellare poi. Gli sfugge
che in politica occorre trovare soprattutto compromessi accettabili da
ambo le parti. Bombacci vede il mondo come un gioco a somma zero, con
la confortevole certezza che lui finira' sempre dalla parte che perde
- liberandosi cosi' dal rischio di assumere responsabilita'. Al netto
delle pirlate, la prospettiva di Persio e' identica, ma lui la riveste
di senso tragico. Bombacci invece se ne esce dal dramma facendosi una
sega. E poi ride da solo.

 sia penalizzare Israele
cdo.
La pace = penalizzare Israele. Grazie, Zanardo.