"US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged the Israelis and Palestinians to restart talks "as soon as possible".
She was speaking after meeting Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, in a new US drive to restart the region's peace process. Palestinians said Israel must freeze settlement building in the occupied territories before talks can resume. But Mr Netanyahu said this was a "pretext and an obstacle" to prevent the renewal of negotiations.

At Saturday night's news conference with America's top diplomat, the Israeli premier called for the talks to restart "immediately". He said the Palestinians had never before put forward a precondition for peace talks linked to the settlements issue. Making peace in the Middle East is a top foreign policy priority for President Obama, but in his first nine months in office he has had a crash course in the reasons why every attempt to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians has failed. So far the Obama administration's Middle East peace initiative hasn't even managed to get the two sides around a table. More than that, attempts by President Abbas to co-operate with the Americans have damaged him at home.

The rising tension has led to violence between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem. No-one expected it to be quick or easy for President Obama in the Middle East. But he needs diplomatic progress, because the absence of hope in the region tends to lead to bloodshed. Mrs Clinton agreed, adding: "What the prime minister [Netanyahu] has offered in specifics on restraints on a policy of settlements... is unprecedented in the context of prior to negotiations." "I want to see both sides begin as soon as possible in negotiations," she said.

Earlier in day, Mrs Clinton met Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Abu Dhabi. Those talks were described as "frank and difficult" by chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat. Mr Abbas told journalists later: "Israel should honour its obligations especially with regards to the total halt on the settlements," AFP news agency reported.

When Mr Netanyahu took office seven months ago, the Obama administration called on Israel to halt all settlement building. But following Israeli objections, Washington said the most important thing was to get the negotiations going again.The BBC's Paul Wood in Jerusalem says that on the issue of settlements, quite simply the Obama administration blinked first. The Palestinian refusal to acquiesce in this means the chances are slimmer than ever that these talks about talks can be turned into substantive negotiations, he adds."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8335211.stm

In other words, Netanyahu called Obama's bluff - and won. So much for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Very few, if any, US politicians have the balls to deal with the Zio-Nazis. There are plenty of Jews in the US and in Israel who want him to.

Sounds like a term that maybe Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity came up with...

In that case, they certainly should have sent someone other than Mrs. Clinton.

Sorry to say, the Obama-Clinton team has looked as amateurish in their policies toward Israel and Palestine as did Bush and Rice. In fact, it's worse, because there were expectations that Obama was not afraid to confront Israel's right wing government on the requirement to freeze all illegal west bank settlements as a condition to peace talks, but Obama seems to have backed down in the face of Netanhayu's intransigence. Obama's stature looks tarnished in the process; Hillary looked even worse in her last press conference where she appeared to be pleading for the start of peace talks, as if America was a client state of Israel's, but refused to even concede to reporters what all the world knows: Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

This is not the way the world's only superpower is supposed to behave.If the Israelis refuse America's request to end their illegal settlements in occupied Palestine, there should be sanctions for such lawlessness imposed by the United States, including a ban on Americans sending financial support for any settlements. Instead, the tail is wagging the dog here and Obama's master plan for rapproachment with the Muslim world is going down a drain made in Tel Aviv.

On the other hand, there are many Israelis who fear that any Israeli PM who picks a fight with America's president is bound to lose in the long term, no matter who blinks first. In the simplest terms, Israel's national security hinges on its relationship with the United States, while America's interests are not so dependent, notwithstanding 50 years of Zionist propaganda that wants everyone to believe that "what's good for Israel is good for America." No one knew that included shipping Israel's problems with terrorism to the USA.

For understandable reasons, America's Jews are especially reluctant to be seen publicly siding with an Israeli PM against their own President, raising the spectre of a "fifth column" which puts the interests of Israel ahead of America. That perception among non-Jews could foster resentment and distrust of Israel and the loyalty of America's Jews, creating a climate for real Skokie-type nazi kooks to emerge, something that the Israeli lobby may actually see as politically useful for them to play the "never again" card.

None of this is new, of course. It's exactly why prominent Jews like Albert Einstein opposed the formation of Israel as a Jewish State in the first place, because they feared it could divide the loyalties of the Diaspora Jews, and incite antisemitism around the globe, if the displacement and treatment of Palestine's indigenous population became an issue of injustice. Well, it has done exactly that, and Obama has got his hands full trying to handle it, without looking like just another George Bush. Sad to say, Hillary has been doing did a pretty good imitation of Condi Rice too.

As many predicted, Obama caved-in when presented with typical Zionist intransigence; they've been getting away with it for years so why change now?
If Abbas has any sense, he'll say no to any talks until the colonisation is stopped.

If he were brave enough (and he's not) he'd tell General Dayton to get out of Palestine, release all the resistance prisoners imprisoned on Dayton's orders and enter into an agreement with Hamas and the other resistance groups.

Zio-nazis is a perfectly legitimate description of the fundamentalist settlers (not all settlers are fundamentalists, some are merely carpet-baggers) whom I met in Palestine- and their supporters. They are undoubtedly fanatical Zionists , their behaviour is no better than that of the Nazis and their racist ideology is similar. The Palestinians are the Jews of the 30s.

Based on various accounts in the western media, it's starting to look like Hillary Clinton may have gone off the Obama reservation when she stood beside BeBe Natanyahu last week and did a U-turn on Washington's position demanding an Israeli moratorium on illegal settlements in Palestine. It's far from clear if Clinton was running off at the mouth, thinking she was still a senator from New York running for re-election among that state's large group of Jewish voters, rather than carrying the portfolio of the Secretary of State.

It's possible, of course, that Clinton was assigned the task by the White House to effect the U-turn in policy without getting Obama personally involved in an embarrassing situation. Based on some of Hillary's subsequent comments in Egypt, however, where she was obviously trying desperately to undo some of the things she said in Jerusalem, it looks like she may have been flying solo.

In any event, Hillary seems to have managed to become persona non grata in the arab world overnight with that performance in Jerusalem. Many think she proved to be the straw that broke Abbas' back and caused him to pull out of the upcoming race for the Palestinian presidency. I'm wondering what the White House thinks about her performance. I suspect BeBe and Hillary may be wondering too.

Clinton has always been an Israel-fanatic. Her behaviour at the annexation wall that now cuts Bethlehem off from the rest of the world three years ago caused distress in its total disregard for the plight of the victims.

Apparently, on her first visit to Palestine as Secretary of State she was profoundly shocked by its poverty, begging the question "how come she didn't already know?"

Anyway, she has done- unwittingly- one good deed for Palestine; her astonishingly, cringingly insensitive praise for the ethnic-cleansing Netanyahu finally persuaded the quisling Abbas to call it a day, leaving Palestine in pieces- but not peace.

Now let's get Marwan Baghouti out of his kidnappers' hands; he's a secular leader who can bridge the gap with Hamas.