[The following owes special thanks to Rabbi Michael Lerner, Yousef Munayyer, and Josh Ruebner who offered their opinions for this article. Lerner is working on increasing support for the Global Marshall Plan. Munayyer has written articles which have appeared in The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The San Fransisco Chronicle and others. Ruebner, who once burned his Israeli military papers in an act of civil disobedience which took place across from the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., and spends time fighting for several projects like the Stop the Wall Project, the Caterpillar Project, and the Divestment Project, which are all aimed at improving the plight of the Palestinian people.]
The Appointment of George Mitchell
Former Senator George Mitchell was recently chosen by Obama and Clinton to head a U.S. peace envoy to the Middle East.
If George Mitchell is simply leading a peace envoy to the Middle East to develop a new policy to fit within a paradigm of power politics, there is little hope for the people of this war-torn region.
Lucky for America, hope and change is in the air and the majority of the world will watch closely as the peace envoy goes to work and hope that this is the moment they’ve been waiting for---a moment where both sides can finally enjoy peace and security.
The stakes are already raised high despite the attempts of President Obama to temper the world’s expectations by describing how long this will take and how difficult it may be. Obama knows what must be done, which is why he gave his first televised Q&A to the Saudi-backed Dubai-based channel al-Arabiya.
Josh Ruebner, the National Advocacy Director for the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, said, “The appointment of George Mitchell is an indication that the Obama Administration is interested in pursuing a more even-handed policy than the Bush Administration.”
Ruebner emphasized the fact that Mitchell is better than someone with ties to AIPAC or the Washington Institute of Near East Policies.
Yousef Munayyer, policy analyst for the Anti-Arab Discrimination Committee, found Mitchell to be a positive choice.
Referencing Mitchell’s “proven record of peacemaking” in Northern Ireland, Munayyer said, “Mitchell is someone that’s going to be perceived as even-handed by both sides, which [will] go a great way in terms of the required good faith that negotiators need to have to make the kind of concessions that will lead to a lasting peace.”
According to Munayyer, an “even-handed approach” would be “one where the American interlocutors as a mediator willing to listen to both sides, willing to enforce equally promises made by both sides and not favor one side over the other.”
On the other hand, Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun and chair of the Spiritual Network of Progressives, said, “Within the framework that Clinton and Obama are thinking of, I think it’s an excellent choice. I think the framework, however, is a mistaken framework. The framework is one which the United States is to repeat the Clinton years.”
The framework is crucial and many will no doubt focus on the players instead of the play itself rather than hone in on the fact that the plan itself is flawed.
When asked if Gaza missing from the itinerary and if the peace envoy not including someone like former President Jimmy Carter (who recently published "We Can Have Peace In The Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work") showed why the framework was off, Rabbi Lerner said:
I don’t think the issue is do we go to Gaza or we don’t go to Gaza, whether Hamas is including or do we not include Hamas originally---These are the distraction kind of issues. There’s a larger framework. That large framework is that there is not going to be peace until there is a willingness on the part of Israel to return the West Bank to the Palestinian people.
Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, unlike Rabbi Lerner, is concerned by the small details within the framework. She wrote a statement directed at President Barack Obama recently which took specific issue with the fact that Gaza is not on the itinerary and Hamas will most likely not be included in talks while the peace envoy is in the Middle East.
