Israel tries to mend fences with U.S.

by David Harris

JERUSALEM, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Israel's chief peace negotiator Yitzhak Molcho is reportedly meeting with senior U.S. officials to deliver Israel's replies to demands made by U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton regarding Israel's seriousness about the peace process.

Israel dispatched to Washington its chief peace negotiator in a bid to end the acrimony between the two nations that has left the Palestinian-Israeli peace process in tatters.

Molcho's visit to Washington comes a week before both Netanyahu and Clinton are expected to address a conference of the main pro- Israeli lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

HALTED TALKS

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders had agreed to start indirect talks before an Israeli Interior Ministry committee approved a housing project in East Jerusalem, which outraged Palestinians and Arabs.

The expansion project was made public last week as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was in Jerusalem to hail the peace talks. It left him humiliated and Washington extremely angry.

Clinton has reportedly made three demands to see if the Jewish state is ready to make amends for what Israel believes was a faux pas but what the Palestinians say was clear proof that the current Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not serious in any way, shape or form about the peace process.

The demands are that Israel make an immediate goodwill gesture to the Palestinians, that the indirect parley focus on the core issues, rather than become "talks about talks" as the Israelis prefer, and that Israel cancel the building project in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim to be the capital of their future state.

Israel's Interior Minister Eli Yishai said on Monday there would be no housing freeze. Netanyahu made a speech in which he hinted that he would not be the first prime minister in 40 years to halt building in the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.

In the midst of the spat between Israel and Washington, U.S. special envoy George Mitchell's planned trip this week to boost the talks by has been put on ice.

MEDIA ROLE

As far as Peter Medding, a professor of politics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is concerned, "difference" is a much better way of describing the current state of affairs than calling it a "crisis."

Medding, who has been following the American-Israeli relationship for decades, said there have been many similar standoffs in the past. Where there is a close relationship for a long period, there will always be highs and lows, he stressed.

"If you listen to Clinton and other administration officials, then the big picture or the basic framework is the commitment of the U.S. to the existence of Israel, the security of Israel and the strong relationship between the United States and Israel... It 's not the beginning of the abandonment of Israel," he said.

That view appears to have been backed on Wednesday by Israel's ambassador to Washington Michael Oren. He was quoted earlier in the week in the Israeli media as saying that relations between Israel and the United States were at a 35-year low.