Obama on Brink of Deal for Middle East Peace Talks

[Political Junky]

Barack Obama on brink of deal for Middle East peace talks | World news | The Guardian

Barack Obama is close to brokering an Israeli-Palestinian deal that will allow him to announce a resumption of the long-stalled Middle East peace talks before the end of next month, according to US, Israeli, Palestinian and European officials.

Key to bringing Israel on board is a promise by the US to adopt a much tougher line with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme. The US, along with Britain and France, is planning to push the United Nations security council to expand sanctions to include Iran's oil and gas industry, a move that could cripple its economy.

In return, the Israeli government will be expected to agree to a partial freeze on the construction of settlements in the Middle East. In the words of one official close to the negotiations: "The message is: Iran is an existential threat to Israel; settlements are not."

Details of the breakthrough deal will be hammered out tomorrow in London, where the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is due to hold talks with the US special envoy, George Mitchell. Netanyahu met Gordon Brown today in Downing Street, where the two discussed both settlements and the Iranian nuclear programme.
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[del]

how carteresque

 

[Sinatra]

Ah, another "historic" Mid-east peace talk!

 

[Big Black Dog]

Same old political game as all of them before him. When it gets hot in the kitchen at home, direct all the attention to something overseas. He'll do anything to try to bring his very poor "like me" numbers up past 50%. Imagine that. More than 50% of the people in the US think he's doing a very poor job. I heard he will be giving handjobs at the next few townhall meetings he goes to just to try and get the numbers up.

 

[Polk]

Epic waste of time which every president gets sucked in to at some point or another. Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian leadership have an interest in peace, so until the mindset of the leadership is fundamentally changed, talks will not be fruitful.

 

[txlonghorn]

Key to bringing Israel on board is a promise by the US to adopt a much tougher line with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme. The US, along with Britain and France, is planning to push the United Nations security council to expand sanctions to include Iran's oil and gas industry, a move that could cripple its economy.

Why hasn't this happened already??? Oh...that's right...it's the UN. We should just send the Big O over there and let him schmooze them down to a nice calm peace loving nation. Now THAT would be some REAL change.

How long have we been trying to broker peace between these two??? My, how time flies!!