Upcoming initiative ‘takes advantage of new technology,’ embraces ‘previously unthinkable’ realities, says outgoing UN envoy
The outgoing US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, on Tuesday called on Israelis and Palestinians to back a US peace plan to be unveiled in early 2019, saying it was far more “thoughtful” and creative than any that have come before.
Without revealing details of the plan, drawn up by US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Haley said it was far longer than past proposals and included elements that would have previously been “unthinkable.”
“Unlike previous attempts at addressing this conflict, this plan is not just a few pages, containing unspecific and unimaginative guidelines,” said Haley, who is due to leave her post at the end of December.
“It is much longer. It contains much more thoughtful detail. It brings new elements to the discussion, taking advantage of the new world of technology we now live in,” she told a regular session of the Security Council on the Middle East.
“It embraces the reality that things can be done today that were previously unthinkable,” she added. “It recognizes that realities on the ground in the Middle East have changed, and changed in very powerful and important ways.
“The critical question is whether the response will be any different. There are things in the plan that every party will like, and there are things in the plan that every party will not like,” said Haley, who will be replaced by State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.
Haley said that if countries focus solely on parts of the plan that they do not like, “we would return back to the failed status quo of the last fifty years with no prospects for change.”
But she said, “I assure you there is a lot for both sides to like.”
She said that “both sides would benefit greatly from a peace agreement, but the Palestinians would benefit more, and the Israelis would risk more.”
Her comments were met with a measured response from European states, who said they “would like to reiterate once more and emphasize the EU’s strong continued commitment to the internationally agreed parameters” — which include a two-state solution along the 1967 armistice lines and a settlement of the status of Jerusalem, claimed by both sides as their capital.
“Any peace plan that fails to recognize these internationally agreed parameters would risk being condemned to failure,” the EU states said in a statement.
The Trump administration angered many in the diplomatic community when it moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem this year after recognizing the city as Israel’s capital in December 2017, prompting the Palestinians to break off talks with Washington.
The US administration has cut more than $500 million in Palestinian aid since the start of the Palestinian boycott.
The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. International consensus has been that Jerusalem’s status must be negotiated between the two sides.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and lawyer Jason Greenblatt, who have led efforts to draft the plan, traveled to the region several times for talks on the proposals.
Greenblatt said in an October interview with The Times of Israel that the plan would “be heavily focused on Israeli security needs” while remaining “fair to the Palestinians.”
@ adamdalgliesh:
t was who sad that Capone was easy to deal with…. and Michael who said that dealing with him was like dealing with Hamas…etc I don’t like anyone to get me mixed up with the Prophetic Guru….even though I do believe that he’s a decent fellow…. I just don’t believe in prophecies…especially his.
Calculated guesswork s what I’m convinced it is.
Also, I have always understood that Meyer Lansky never did kill or order anyone to be killed. He wasn’t in that line of business being purely financial.
I recall reading an interview with his wife…who was not backward about coming forward at all. …..quite the contrary. She said she “always resented the BIG gangster reputation he had. She said that his business WAS with gangsters but he was an accountant who went to work in the morning, and came home every evening after work like anyone else. He was not involved with what they did, other than when there was a business to be opened or set up. He looked after the financial and economic advice..like the Cuba thing just before Castro too over.. He made a big mistake there investing all our money which ruined us……” (paraphrased)
And according to her he was a very good husband; a decent and kind-hearted man who helped hundred.
I met a cousin of his some years ago, who had a very high opinion of him, and said he wasn’t anything at all like he was described.. I suppose you all remember when the Justice Dept was going after him in a big way, and thinking they’d throw the book at him, he wanted to emigrate to Israel, but they refused him because of his reputation, so he had to return to the US. … After a short trlal he was found……….. NOT GULITY…. !!
@ Edgar G.: Michael, you are right about Al Capone. His popular reputation as an evil man is partially undeserved. He fed hundreds of thousands of starving, homeless people in Chicago between 1930 and 1932, when the Federal government finally began making relief available to those rendered destitute by the depression.
He and his gunmen never killed an innocent bystander, or the wives and children of any of the gangsters whom he killed or had killed. This contrasts favorably with , say, Harry Truman, who ordered the USAAF to kill hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians, either burned alive or dying agonizingly slow deaths from radiation poisoning, or Lyndon Johnson, who consigned hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian civilians to death in “free-fire zones.” Who, then, was the worst criminal–Capone, or these U.S. Presidents? Not to mention FDR and Churchill, who killed tens of thousands of innocent German, French and Italian civilians with “area bombing?”
Capone never initiated a gang war with his rivals. He always tried to negotiate peace with them. He often put up with numerous provocations before he finally struck back at people who were trying to kill him, cheat him , or destroy his business. He was always loyal to his loyal friends, and he was always polite and considerate in his treatment of women. He gave lavish Christmas parties to children. He was always helpful and friendly to his neighbors. When he died, tens of thousands of Chicagoans turned out for his funeral. Nor was this because there are always large crowds at a gangsters funeral. Many gangsters’ funeral are attended only by a few close relatives, since even their fellow gangsters despised them. The only funerals for which the entire “mob” turned out were Capone’s and Meyer Lansky’s. Lansky, like Capone had a reputation among people who knew him as a decent and humane individual who didn’t start fights with other people, and didn’t like to kill them except in self-defense.
I believe that the reason the Federal government released Capone after only seven years in Alcatraz is that they knew he was a good person in some respects. In addition, it is probable that prominent Chicagoans interceded for him because he had saved so many lives during the Depression.
@ Michael S:
Actually accounts say that deals with Al Capone were easy to make, and always kept….until the other side tried to pull a “fast one”…
I think Haley”s non reference to refugee return is much more than “circumlocution”….. it is ignored completely, and not under any consideration at all. (unless you have access to information of a larger announcement than we.)..
Trump made this clear long ago when he required a proper definition of “who is a refugee”.and named an amount not exceeding 500,000. And his suggested remedy was resettlement by the UNHCR, not return to vanished villages inside Israel…
Inside of 40 years which is a short time France will be ruled by Muslim Sharia
Inside of 40 years the same will happen to all the countries of Europe
Inside of 40 years the great United States will be no more
Inside of 40 years there will be no Jewish State of Israel. The Islamic Jihad of the “Palestinian Fascists” will have destroyed the Jews and Islam will have carried out the final Holocaust.
Inside of less than 40 years the population of Africa will have ballooned and created total havoc in the world.
Overpopulation will bring on the Sixth Extinction of all wildlife.
Global Warming due to capitalism will make a world unliveable.
Inside of 40 years there will be no sovereign nations and borders will have been swept aside
Inside of these 40 years the world will be in barbarism
NOTE…we are not going to be in the “last days” because of Christian or Jewish “prophesy”. We are going to be in barbarism because humanity did not replace capitalism with revolution. The whole of the problems in the world are coming because of capitalism. Man does not need prophesy of anything. The reasons are all too clear and are staring us in the face.
Is there any hope of avoiding a terrible future. There is only one hope. What is it? The youth of the world of the historical working class must take over but led by the discipline and leadership of Trotskyism.
Why so you may ask?
You ask the question like that because you are ignorant of history. It is the task of this website to be clear about the history we have passed through. Leadership does not come from ignorance. It comes from knowledge.
http://trotskyist.org/inside-of-40-years/
“Haley said that if countries focus solely on parts of the plan that they do not like, “we would return back to the failed status quo of the last fifty years with no prospects for change.””
Haley is circumlocuting that Arab claims on Green Line Israel, such as the “return of refugees”, are off the table. That’s a good sign.
I wonder what “taking advantage of the new world of technology we now live in” means. Sonic weapons, to permanently disable Pal rocketeers? How do you deal with a country that uses its own children as human shields, in order to continually attack its neighbors?
The Palestinian areas appear to be a gangster state(s) enjoying widespread, eager and willing cooperation from the citizens. Negotiating with Hamas and Fatah, is like making a deal with Al Capone. Those terrorists need to be executed, not talked to.
Jordan is Arab Palestine, Israel is Jewish Palestine, the 2 state solution…