Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:18:15 GMT

George Mitchell, the US envoy to the Middle East, says that he has not reached a deal with Israel on halting settlement activities in the occupied West Bank.

In a Monday meeting with the acting Palestinian Authority Chief, Mahmoud Abbas, Mitchell said that he was still working on a deal with Israel to halt West Bank settlement activities as a prelude to the resumption of peace talks.

"We are discussing the issue but we didn't conclude an agreement yet with the Israelis," a senior Palestinian official quoted Mitchell as saying at a working dinner with Abbas.

The US President Barack Obama's envoy has already held top-level talks in the UK, United Arab Emirates, Syria and Egypt in the past week. The official also cited him telling Abbas that everyone involved must do more in the coming weeks.

"Washington was doing everything it could to achieve a comprehensive peace ... between Israelis and Palestinians, between Syria and the Israelis, between Israel and Lebanon and the normalization of relations between Israel and all of the countries in the region," Mitchell told reporters.

The envoy said Obama wanted "an early return to meaningful negotiations and a prompt resolution of those negotiations." He added, "That means that everyone must take steps, some of them difficult, some of them controversial to create the context ..."

Mitchell has told Abbas that Obama is committed to the peace process, and is 'determined and consistent' about it. Mitchell is due to see the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.

http://www.presstv.ir/new/detail.aspx?id=101788&sectionid=351020202

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:05:59 GMT

Israeli far right factions have staged a rally in Jerusalem against US President Barack Obama amid growing signs of dissension between the two allies.

Nearly 1,500 people held a demonstration at a Jerusalem (al-Quds) square on Monday evening to protest the policy adopted by the Obama administration in dealing with Israel, the Israeli Channel 7 reported Tuesday.

The event was organized by several right-wing groups including the institution representing West Bank Jewish settlers as well as ultranationalist organizations and the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities.

The anti-Obama rally was supported by the right-wing parties including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, Knesset (Israeli parliament) Members, rabbis and other public officials.

Addressing US President Barack Obama directly, former Knesset member Rabbi Eliezer Waldman said, "You are a racist! How dare you tell Jews that they can't live in this place or in that location? We're finished with such periods in our history!"

The demonstrators also chanted slogans like "Yes to Israeli independence, no to American dictates!"

The protests came as the US and Israel remain at odds over the issue of Jewish settlements built on territories occupied in the 1967 war.

While Washington calls for a complete freeze in the construction of settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, Tel Aviv is seeking to continue settlement activities "to meet demands caused by natural growth."

Israel had earlier promised to stop such activities but Likud and its right wing allies are reluctant to abide by the regime's previous commitments.

http://www.presstv.ir/new/detail.aspx?id=101826&sectionid=351020202