by Cheryl Rofer
Busy week this week, so I'll just give you a couple of things.
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister who won't say he's in favor of a two-state solution and who's been trying to turn the focus to Iran, will visit the United States next week and talk to President Obama and Secretary Clinton. Here's the best summary I've found of what to look for:
1. Do not expect a show-down between Obama and Netanyahu - but do look for the Obama administration to change its tone and reposition itself among the parties.One of the events of my past week was a talk by Sig Hecker on North Korea. What Sig is doing, in his trips to North Korea, is what is called track-II diplomacy. It's unofficial, but he keeps the State Department well informed. He said that this article in the Bulletion of the Atomic Scientists contains the information he gave in the talk, and I see that it does.2. The U.S. should escape the Annapolis logic of bilateral negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians alone in favor of direct, robust American involvement. The US must be a leader in this process - not a mere facilitator.
3. Refrain from repackaging endless 'peace processing' and going after non-implementable solutions (an example of which is the futile attempt to condition de-occupation on Palestinian capacity and institution building).
His big concerns about North Korea are that they will test again, which will change the negotiating situation, and that they will collaborate with the Iranians. He sees a difficult negotiation ahead. From what he said, the North Koreans were quite intransigent when they told him their intentions.
