REPORTS that Middle East envoy George Mitchell wants to quit would make one less "special envoy" in Barack Obama's service, which couldn't be bad.
Mitchell's reason for wanting to quit are said to be two. One is that he believes "that certain elements within the State Department hold biased favour toward Israel". Historically, this would be a brand-new departure in attitude for a bureaucracy that has always been more than a bit churlish towards the Jewish state. It once was thought that Hillary Clinton, with a relatively friendly attitude towards Israel and a firm understanding of the perils it faces, might put her stamp on the department. But, as it happens, she has turned.
Parroting every false issue that comes her way, she leaps to the front of the diplomatic line to reproach Benjamin Netanyahu and his government which, pressed by its hard Right, has tried to accommodate the Palestinians. It is the Obama administration that invented the demand that Israel cease all settlement building, including in Jerusalem. Are they mad? Anyway, Hillary went along, as did groggy old George.
And now the Obami have discovered a new cause celebre. Netanyahu has put on "the national heritage list" two sites that are somehow controversial, and the controversy seems to assume that the territorial issues on the West Bank are already settled. Which they are not. Not by a long shot. The sites are Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs. The first is located less than a stone's throw from the southern lines of Jerusalem. The second is situated in Hebron, an ancient city in which Jews lived freely until the massacre of 1929.
Can anyone imagine that a list of national heritage sites of the Jewish people in the Jewish state would not include both the Tomb and the Cave?
So the Obama administration has not tilted towards Israel at all, regardless of what Mitchell says.
A more likely reason for Mitchell's dyspepsia is that he has been a complete flop. He has not advanced peace negotiations, and he is not likely to.
As it happens, Obama rejected Mitchell's plea that he be allowed to resign. We are stuck with this lacklustre and unimaginative man -- for how long, I don't know.
THE NEW REPUBLIC
