Clinton praises Israeli President Peres for U.S.-Israel alliance

July 16, 2012 1 Comment

Hillary Clinton and Shimon Peres

Hillary Clinton and Shimon Peres

By Jennifer Packer, Political Analyst

Washington, July 16 — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a day-long trip to Israel Monday, met with Israeli President Shimon Peres to discuss regional issues ranging from the importance of maintaining the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty and restarting peace talks with the Palestinians to the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran and the civil war in Syria.

“It is in moments like these that friends like us have to think together, act together,” Clinton told Peres when they met. “We are called to be smart, creative and courageous.” Clinton also praised Peres, saying “no individual has done so much over so many years to build our alliance between our two countries.” She added that “few people know better …the inextricable links between security and peace.”

Hillary Clinton and Shimon Peres

Hillary Clinton and Shimon Peres

Clinton also said she was in Israel at a “moment of great change and transformation in the region. It is a time of uncertainty,” she said, “but also of opportunity. It is a chance to advance our shared goal of security, stability, peace, and democracy, along with prosperity for the millions of people in this region who have yet to see a better future.”

It was the secretary of state’s first visit to Israel since September 2010 and came on the heels of a meeting in Egypt with newly elected President Mohamed Morsi. In addition to Peres, Clinton’s schedule includes meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Secretary Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. She met recently in Paris with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

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Clinton calls for resumption of peace talks

July 15, 2012 2 Comments

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Jerusalem, July 15 – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected in Jerusalem Sunday for talks with Israeli leaders following her meeting in Cairo to endorse democracy and peace with newly-elected Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.

In Cairo, Clinton said she came “to reaffirm the strong support of the United States for the Egyptian people and for your democratic transition.”

Clinton called on the Palestinians to return to the peace talks with Israel, saying there was no alternative to direct negotiations.

“I’m in very close communication with [Palestinian] President Abbas. I met with him last Friday in Paris. Our goal is to help bring about the two-state solution. And we know that it can only happen if there is a negotiation between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and that can only happen if all Palestinians are committed to seeking a political resolution and renouncing violence.”

She referred to the split between Abbas’ Fatah party that controls the West Bank and the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist organization that seized power in Gaza from Fatah in a bloody 2007 coup. Hamas leaders reject the peace process and are committed to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state.

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Israeli Ambassador to U.S. Oren briefs Romney on Middle East issues

June 25, 2012 Leave a comment

Mitt Romney speaking to the Faith and Freedom Coalition June 16, 2012

Mitt Romney speaking to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, June 16, 2012

By Lauren Appelbaum, Political Director

Washington, June 25 – At a donor retreat in Utah, Mitt Romney said he is regularly briefed on the Middle East by Israeli government officials and recently met with Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren.

Ha’aretz reports that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said he and Oren discussed “the situation in Syria, the elections in Egypt and the effort to isolate Iran.”

Briefings like these with candidates are not unusual. Natasha Mozgovaya of Ha’aretz reports that an Israeli official said Ambassador Oren’s half-hour chat with Romney is part of a bipartisan policy to keep U.S. public figures informed.

“The conversation was held as part of the embassy’s ongoing work, with the principle of bipartisanism serving as a guiding light,” an Israeli Embassy official said.

Romney made these comments after dropping in during a breakout session on the U.S.-Israel relationship Friday afternoon . Of the 700 donors who attended the retreat, about 50 were Jewish. Between half and three-quarters of the 100 donors attending this session were not Jewish.

The former governor of Massachusetts also told the donors he would be doing more to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

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Moscow talks with Iran “crucial:” Israel DCM

June 18, 2012 3 Comments

Amb. Barukh Binah, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Israel to the United States - Photo by Alisa Rank

Ambassador Barukh Binah, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Israel to the United States

By Ari Bildner, Staff Writer

Washington, June 18 – The upcoming negotiations with Iran will be pivotal in global efforts to halt Iran’s uranium enrichment, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Israel to the United States said Monday.

“The Iranians are playing every trick in the book,” Ambassador Barukh Binah said at a Capitol Hill briefing organized by The Israel Project. “We need the international community to put an end to the [enrichment] process.”

The P5+1, the six-nation negotiation group comprising of Russia, China, France, Germany, the U.K. and U.S., will take on Iran’s nuclear ambitions again in talks scheduled for today and tomorrow in Moscow. The meeting was almost derailed by Iran’s rhetoric against the European Union, a lead party to the negotiations, and news reports have related little progress in the first day of meetings.

Binah noted that the previous two talks held earlier this year had not yielded progress toward ending the enrichment process, and said Israel was looking for “tangible measures” this time around.

“The longer it takes, the better for them,” he added.

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Is Egypt a Red State? New Poll Finds Romney Support There

May 22, 2012 2 Comments

By Ari Bildner, Staff Writer

Washington, May 22 – Egypt is GOP country – even though most Egyptians probably know little about the Republican presidential nominee.

A new University of Maryland poll by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution asked Egyptian voters their preference in the U.S. presidential race. Seventy-three percent chose Mitt Romney while only 25 percent chose President Obama.

Yet Shibley Telhami – a Middle East scholar at the University of Maryland who directed the poll – cautioned that the result was largely due to anti-Obama sentiment among Egyptians angered by his embrace of Israeli  policy, particularly at the U.N. General Assembly last September.

“It’s essentially an anger-with-Obama indication,” he said at the poll release event in Washington on Monday. “It’s not an embrace of Romney; they know nothing about him.”

Telhami explained that Egyptians have been wrapped up in domestic turmoil ahead of the watershed presidential election Thursday, with little time to follow the U.S race. The numbers supporting Romney, he said, instead show the souring of Egyptian opinion since Obama’s landmark Cairo speech in June 2009. Most Egyptians, he said, believe Obama has been biased against the Palestinians in his dealings with Israel.

“This happened almost entirely because of his position on the Israel-Palestine question; we measured that,” Telhami said, who noted the “zero-sum” irony that Israelis conversely held negative attitudes toward Obama at first and have become positive about incumbent president in the last year.

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Duncan, Ros-Lehtinen, Sherman aim to limit funding to Egypt

May 16, 2012 1 Comment

By Ashley Gold, Staff Writer

Washington, May 16 - Reps. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) have filed an amendment to limit U.S. funding for U.S. participation in military-to-military exercises with Egypt if Egypt terminates or withdraws from the 1979 treaty with Israel.

The amendment, No. 201, to HR 4310, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY13, states, “None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act may be made available for United States participation in joint military exercises with Egypt if the Government of Egypt terminates or withdraws from the 1979 Israeli-Egypt peace treaty.”

Between 1948 and 2011, the U.S. provided Egypt with $71.6 billion in bilateral foreign aid, including $1.3 billion in military aid annually from 1987 until now.

The Muslim Brotherhood/Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), now part of the Islamist majority, said it will honor Egypt’s international agreements, but made an exception for the Camp David Accords, made in 1981 to showcase the strength of the U.S./Egypt military relationship. FJP also vowed to never recognize the State of Israel.

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Sen. McCain Appeals for Release of U.S. Democracy Workers in Egypt

February 21, 2012 Leave a comment

Sen. John McCain

Sen. John McCain

By Alan Elsner, Editor-in-Chief

Washington, Feb. 21 – This time four years ago, Arizona Sen. John McCain was deeply embroiled in his campaign to become the Republican presidential nominee – but this week found him in Cairo, speaking about the fate of 16 U.S. pro-democracy workers and discussing whether the United States should be arming Syrian rebels.

McCain was in Cairo to attend a business conference but used the visit to meet with Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and other Egyptian leaders to discuss the fate of the Americans.

“He (Tantawi) gave us his assurance that they are working very diligently to try to resolve the NGO issue,” McCain told reporters after a day that included contacts with newly elected lawmakers and members of the country’s powerful Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

“We are confident that people of good faith in this country and our country and many others can and will find an acceptable resolution to the present situation,” McCain said. “As we follow the debate here in Egypt, we hear it said that these NGOs are violating Egypt’s sovereignty and meddling in its affairs. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

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