David Miliband: Barack Obama Middle East plan best since Camp David

[struggle4progress]

Source: The Times

Tom Baldwin in Washington

David Miliband hailed President Obama’s efforts to kick-start the Middle East peace process yesterday as a once in a generation opportunity to resolve the 60-year conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

The Foreign Secretary, speaking before talks in Washington with Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, said that this was the first US Administration since that of Jimmy Carter in the Camp David talks of 1978 to have “thrown itself into the peace process from day one”. He also praised Mr Obama’s team for recognising “the regional context” of the need to broker a settlement that not only allows Israel to live in peace alongside a new Palestinian state but also with the 21 other Arab nations.

Today, on his return to London, Mr Miliband will meet Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Foreign Minister, before a flurry of intense American-led diplomacy over the next month ...

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6276316.ece

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. Uh oh... have the folks over at "Rapture Ready" heard about this yet?

Because if Obama manages to bring peace to that area, they'll proclaim him "The Antichrist" !!!1!11!!

(and if he actually managed to pull it off with NuttyYahoo and A. Lieberman in charge, I might have to agree with them, because I don't see any mere mortal being able to reason with those warmongering genocidal crazies.)

[Poll_Blind]

2. Even if he does pull it off, the nutcases on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides will do...

...everything they can to bring it back to the old status quo. I'm not saying it's not worth shooting for but one has to recognize that so much of Israeli political culture, for instance, is based around The Holocaust (TM) (not the actual event, per se, but the event in a political context, like 9/11 (TM)) that those who are currently using it to advance their political careers are not likely to discard the outboard motor which drove them into power.

Avigdor Lieberman is nothing more than the Israeli version of (Russian) Vladimir Zhirinovsky. These guys don't give up and even when they lose they still do all they can to retain a cult following just to keep stirring up shit- in Lieberman's case, King David Hotel style.

It takes so little to bring the fragile construct of a negotiated Peace down.

PB