Tim Fernholz notes that George Mitchell, the widely-respected former Majority Leader of the US Senate, is likely to be tapped as Obama's Middle East peace envoy. That would be encouraging. Not only did Mitchell perform impressively as a mediator in Northern Ireland, but his report on the Second Intifada was notably evenhanded and clear-eyed. The NYT provides some further context:Mr. Mitchell, 75, was appointed in 2000, in the waning days of the Clinton administration, to lead an international commission to investigate the causes of violence in the Middle East. He released a report in the spring of 2001, during the early days of the Bush administration, that called for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and a Palestinian crackdown on terrorism.Other Middle East specialists said Sunday that if Mr. Mitchell was named to the job, he would be seen by both sides as a tougher but more balanced negotiator than recent envoys, which could make some Israelis nervous. Mr. Mitchell has Lebanese as well as Irish roots: his father, Joseph Kilroy, was an orphan adopted by a Lebanese family whose Arabic name had been anglicized to Mitchell, and Mr. Mitchell was raised a Maronite Catholic by his Lebanese mother.The appointment of Mr. Mitchell would be a strong suggestion “that Obama is going to free himself of the exclusive relationship that we’ve had with the Israelis,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.“This is the clearest indication to me that they’re trying to inject more balance into the Israeli-U.S. relationship,” he said.
If you're interested, you can read Mitchell's report here. It's one of the wiser documents on the crisis, full of such startling common sense as Israel should freeze the settlements and the PA should crack down on terrorism at the same time rather than waiting for the other to go first. This would be a great pick, and evidence that Obama really does want to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict in a more credible and aggressive fashion.
