By Michael Ireland
Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
ISRAEL (ANS) -- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to meet Palestinian and Israeli leaders this week in an attempt to find a path back to peace negotiations and avert a potential diplomatic collision over a Palestinian bid to win UN recognition of their statehood.
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Tony Blair, Middle East envoy(Photo via The Guardian website). |
The newspaper says Blair met Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, last week and has further meetings scheduled for this week.
The newspaper explained that the US is accelerating efforts to forestall the Palestinians' bid to win recognition of their state, according to a report in the New York Times.
It states that US President Barack Obama is anxious to avoid a situation where the US has to veto such an attempt, thus risking the anger of the Arab world. The US has made it clear it will wield its veto if the issue comes to a vote at the UN Security Council.
The newspaper goes on to say that Blair is said to be pushing for a consensus around the key issues of borders and acknowledging Israel as a "Jewish state."
However, Israeli officials are unhappy with Obama's speech in May in which he spoke of a Palestinian state "based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps," saying this should not be the starting point of talks, the newspaper reported.
It added that the Palestinians reject formally acknowledging Israel as a Jewish state as it disregards the 20 percent of the population that is Palestinian and undermines the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees.
“Both sides have little confidence in the other's expressed willingness to return to negotiations. There are also differences of opinion within the quartet that may prove difficult to bridge,” the newspaper said in its report.
The newspaper stated that Blair has a long track record of negotiating between the Israelis and Palestinians built up over four years as the quartet's special envoy. According to Daniel Kurtzer, former US ambassador to Israel, the US administration needed a high-profile political figure to push the parties towards negotiations.
"There is a bit of outsourcing going on to someone like Tony Blair just to see if he can make something work," Kurtzer told Reuters. "If he can, the administration will glom on to it and if he can't the administration has not soiled its nest."
| ** Michael Ireland is Senior Correspondent for ANS. He is an international British freelance journalist who was formerly a reporter with a London (United Kingdom) newspaper and has been a frequent contributor to UCB UK, a British Christian radio station. While in the UK, Michael traveled to Canada and the United States, Albania,Yugoslavia, Holland, Germany,and Czechoslovakia. He has reported for ANS from Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Israel, Jordan, China,and Russia. Michael's volunteer involvement with ASSIST News Service is a sponsored ministry department -- 'Michael Ireland Media Missionary' (MIMM) -- of A.C.T. International of P.O.Box 1649, Brentwood, TN 37024-1649, at: Artists in Christian Testimony (A.C.T.) International where you can make a donation online under 'Donate' tab, then look for 'Michael Ireland Media Missionary' under 'Donation Category' to support his stated mission of 'Truth Through Christian Journalism.' Michael is a member in good standing of the National Writers Union, Society of Professional Journalists, Religion Newswriters Association, Evangelical Press Association and International Press Association. If you have a news or feature story idea for Michael, please contact him at: ANS Senior Reporter |  |
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