WarSclerotic

U.S. envoy’s trip on hold as diplomatic crisis deepens – Haaretz – Israel News.

A visit to Israel by U.S. special peace envoy George Mitchell is on hold pending an Israeli response to a series of American demands, Army radio reported on Tuesday.

Mitchell had been due to leave Washington for Israel early on Monday but will delay his trip in a sign of the Obama administration’s growing anger at Israel’s refusal to stop building Jewish homes in East Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on has refused to draw a line under a crisis in Israeli-U.S. relations that erupted last week when Israel announced plans for 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, an orthodox Jewish suburb beyong the Green line in the northeast of the city.

Israel would continue to build in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said on Monday.

“For the past 40 years, no Israeli government ever limited construction in the neighborhoods of Jerusalem,” he said.

Mitchell is thought to have delayed his travel plans until Tuesday ? but may cancel his visit to Israel altogether and instead fly straight to Moscow for talks with the ‘Quartet’ of Middle East peace mediators – the European Union, United Nations, the United States and Russia.

“We want to make sure that we have the commitment from both sides that, when he travels, we can make progress,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

According to a report in The Washington Post on Tuesday, U.S. officials say that Mitchell’s visit will remain on hold until the White House receives an Israeli response to key demands.

Israel must reverse the approval for construction in Ramat Shlomo, make a “substantial gesture” towards the Palestinians and publicly declare that all of the “core issues” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the status of Jerusalem, be included in upcoming talks.

The three conditions, set by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a 43-minute telephone call to Netanyahu on Friday, have not been publicized by the U.S. – but Israel is expected to provide a formal answer on Tuesday, the Post reported.

American officials see a resolution to the current crisis as a test of Netanyahu’s commitment to ties with the U.S., the paper said.

“We have to have guarantees that these kinds of things will not happen again,” a senior U.S. official was quoted as saying, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“If he is unwilling to make that kind of commitment, it raises the questions of how committed he is to negotiations – and it raises the question of how committed he is to the relationship between Israel and the United States.”

“He has to take a firm stand to prevent similar kinds of announcements that will have a negative effect on negotiations,” the official said.

This entry was posted on March 16, 2010 at 6:21 AM and is filed under Iran / Israel War. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.