UN-Truth

Clinton: “you can build what you want in your state and the other can build what they want in their state”

Posted on November 4th, 2009 by Marian Houk

This is how U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton is talking, now, about Israeli settlements that dot the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

It was actually her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, who worked up this formulation during the Annapolis process of negotiations in 2008 — determine the borders, first, and then we’ll know what’s legal, and what’s not, Rice said.

Here is what Clinton said to her travelling press corps on board her plane in Cairo, according to the transcript supplied by the U.S. Department of State:

SECRETARY CLINTON: We are working – and I don’t want to get into negotiating details, but we are working to really fulfill what were, in essence, the terms of reference for any negotiations set forth in President Obama’s speech to the United Nations. I don’t think enough attention may have been paid to exactly what the President said and the importance of what he reaffirmed as the American position. And it obviously is about the territory occupied since 1967, it is about Jerusalem, it is about refugees, it’s about all of those final status issues. So we want to be facilitating the return to negotiations. We don’t think that there’s any question in anybody’s mind about what’s going to be talked about … We have to figure out a way to get into the re-launch of negotiations. And things have happened along the way, the Goldstone report being the most recent and the most difficult for everybody. And that was not – and you saw what happened is the Palestinians tried to postpone so that it wouldn’t be an issue and then they got criticized for that. …

QUESTION: But how – where does Abbas get the cover to take that heat? Where does Abbas get the cover to drop the precondition?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Go ahead, (inaudible).

U.S. OFFICIAL: But he does not have to sign up for this deal. This is something that the Israelis are putting on – are talking about putting on the table. He doesn’t have to sign up for it at all. No one’s asking him to bless it.

QUESTION: No, you’re asking him to sign up for talks though, right?

SECRETARY CLINTON: No, but that’s slightly different. The Israelis are offering this. It can be rejected by everyone. There’s no imposition of it, no requirement for it. The Israelis will decide whether or not they want to go forward with it. That’s up to the Israelis, obviously. But at the end of the day, this discussion about settlements will be mooted by getting into negotiations about borders. Because then, you can build what you want in your state and the other can build what they want in their state”.

On Monday, during a photo session in Morocco, Clinton read from a written statement that, the Associated Press reported, “appeared designed to counter the skepticism about the Obama administration’s views on settlements. ‘Successive American administrations of both parties have opposed Israel’s settlement policy … That is absolutely a fact, and the Obama administration’s position on settlements is clear, unequivocal and it has not changed. As the president has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements’.”

… CONTINUED Israeli settlements? She said, CONTINUED settlements? From what date, or what point in time? That is not clear, or unequivocal …

According to the AP report, Clinton said that “While Israel was moving in the right direction in its offer to restrict but not stop the settlements … its offer ‘falls far short’ of U.S. expectations. Clinton said her earlier praise of Israel’s offer [actually, she said Netanyahu's position was "unprecedented", just as her husband had enthused about earlier proposals from Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud Barak that were tabled at the failed Camp David negotiations in July 2000], during a stop in Jerusalem, had been intended as ‘positive reinforcement’ … Clinton had traveled to the region only reluctantly, concerned her visit might be seen as a failure, according to several U.S. officials. She agreed to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders after pressure from the White House, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration thinking”. That AP report can be read in full here.