Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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here's something curious to consider. this morning the quartet held a meeting about the various aspects of the israel/palestine situation. the same meeting....the same thing...is written about in the following two ways.
in the guardian:
Quartet blasts Israel over East Jerusalem settlements | World news | guardian.co.uk
in the new york times (i paste it here because of the subscription requirement--even though it's still free---and because i would expect this to change)
Quote:
Clinton Calls Israel’s Moves to Ease Tension ‘Useful’
By MARK LANDLER
MOSCOW — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Friday that the proposals offered by the Israeli government to ease a diplomatic row with the United States were “useful and productive,” and that the Obama administration would continue talks in Jerusalem and Washington.
Neither side has characterized the steps outlined in a call Thursday night to Mrs. Clinton by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But Mrs. Clinton’s response signaled the United States was eager to lower the temperature in a dispute that began last week, after Israel announced a housing plan for Jews in East Jerusalem during a visit by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Her remarks came as the quartet, a group that focuses on Middle East peace and comprises the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, condemned Israel’s housing plan for the second time in a week. In a statement, the quartet said it would “closely monitor developments in Jerusalem and to keep under consideration additional steps that may be required to address the situation on the ground.”
Mrs. Clinton, at an international meeting on the Middle East in Moscow, said the United States was focused on successfully launching indirect talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, which would be mediated by the administration’s special representative to the region, George J. Mitchell.
“We all condemned the announcement, and we all are expecting both parties to move toward the proximity talks and to help create an atmosphere in which those talks can be constructive,” Mrs. Clinton said.
Friday’s meeting came amid new fears about the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East. On Thursday night, Israel carried out airstrikes on six sites in the Gaza Strip in what it said was retaliation for a rocket attack from Gaza on a southern Israeli town that killed a Thai worker.
The prospects for reviving the peace process were already murky. The Palestinian Authority insists it will not negotiate until Israel freezes construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Israel’s housing plan, Mrs. Clinton said, further soured the atmosphere.
Mr. Mitchell plans to meet with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem over the weekend, and the prime minister is likely to see Mrs. Clinton when he comes to Washington on Monday to address the annual meeting of a pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said, “We are convinced that Israel will hear this statement, will understand this correctly.”
By speaking to Mrs. Clinton the night before the Quartet meeting, Mr. Netanyahu may have headed off an even sharper international condemnation. But it was not clear whether his proposals come anywhere close to satisfying the demands that Mrs. Clinton presented to him last week.
She asked him to reverse the housing plan, in the ultra-orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, and to freeze other building projects in East Jerusalem. Mr. Netanyahu insisted earlier this week that his government will not cease building in the East Jerusalem, which he said was the declared policy of every Israeli government for decades.
Mrs. Clinton also asked him to pledge to enter into substantive negotiations with the Palestinians over fundamental issues like boundaries, the status of Jerusalem, and refugees. Israel has said it viewed the indirect, or proximity, talks as focusing only on procedural issues.
Still, after a week in which some worried that Israel and the United States were on the edge of an historic clash, Mrs. Clinton reaffirmed the underlying strength of the American-Israeli relationship. “Our relationship is ongoing,” she said. “It is deep and broad; it is strong and enduring.”
But Israel continued to face severe international pressure for its treatment of the civilian population in Gaza, where it has imposed a blockade on the delivery of all but humanitarian goods. The quartet said in its statement that it was “deeply concerned by the continuing deterioration in Gaza.”
The United Nations secretary general, Ban ki-Moon, said he planned to tour Gaza this weekend to see the situation.
For the first time, the quartet said it supported a plan by the Palestinian Authority to build a state within 24 months “as a demonstration of Palestinians’ serious commitment to an independent state that provides good governance, opportunity, and justice for the Palestinian people.”
Later on Friday, Mrs. Clinton will meet with President Dmitri A. Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin. They are expected to discuss the completion of an arms control agreement and the effort to devise new United Nations sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
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Clinton Calls Israel?s Moves to Ease Tension ?Useful? - NYTimes.com
i find the differences between these to be pretty telling.
and americans think they'd don't live in a media bubble.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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