U.S. Department of State

Robert Wood
Deputy Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
July 21, 2009
www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2009/july/126274.htm

TRANSCRIPT:

1:21 p.m. EDT

....

QUESTION: And what about Mitchell?

MR. WOOD: We will do our best to get that information to you. As P.J. said
yesterday, Senator Mitchell's going to be leaving fairly shortly to travel.
We're still working out the last-minute details of that itinerary. I will
try to get it to you all as soon as possible. We expect he'll be leaving
soon, but I just don't have much more in the way of detail at this point.

QUESTION: And what about these rumors about Mitchell - Senator Mitchell
would be ready to or would be willing to retire before the end of the year?
Did you hear about that?

MR. WOOD: That's the first I've heard. No, not at all. I don't think any
truth to that at all.

QUESTION: Could I ask a North Korea question, then?

QUESTION: Still on this.

MR. WOOD: Sure.

QUESTION: Yeah, Israel Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor has said today that
U.S. calls for a freeze on West Bank settlement construction run counter to
past agreement between the two nations and could undermine the U.S.
credibility. Do you have any reaction?

MR. WOOD: I don't have anything beyond what we've said. Our policy has been
very clear on the issue of settlements, and there's been no change.

QUESTION: But are you --

QUESTION: What about the agreements between the U.S. and Israel?

MR. WOOD: I think Secretary Clinton has spoken to that issue in quite a bit
of detail. And I just really don't have anything more to add. I think you
all well know our policy on settlements in Israel (inaudible). I mean, I
could go through it again, but I think you've all heard it many times.

QUESTION: Yeah, we know your policy. But what are you going to do to
convince Israel to go your way on settlements?

MR. WOOD: Well, as you know, this is what Senator Mitchell is trying to do.
He is traveling - he's been to the region a few times, as you know. He is
planning to travel again. And what he's trying to do, and what the Secretary
has been pushing for, is to try to create conditions on the ground,
conditions that will allow us to resume negotiations between the
Palestinians and the Israelis.

QUESTION: Yeah, but obviously Israel doesn't want to do that. Because today,
the Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that Israel acts and will act
in line with its national interests, our rights in Jerusalem, including its
development cannot be challenged.

MR. WOOD: Nobody --

QUESTION: So this is obviously - they just reject all calls from U.S., from
Europeans, from the Russians, from everybody.

MR. WOOD: Well, certainly no one is asking Israel to act outside its
national security interests. What we're asking both parties to do is to
fulfill the Roadmap obligations. Both sides have committed to do that. We
are working with the parties to try to help them fulfill those commitments.
And as I said, Senator Mitchell is trying to help create the conditions on
which we can begin negotiations again between the two parties and eventually
lead to discussions on the other tracks.

Look, Sylvie, this stuff isn't easy. If it were easy, it would have been -
we would have solved this problem a long time ago. But the Secretary -
Senator Mitchell is very committed to this process. And we're going to work
very hard with the parties. We expect there to be ups and downs, but we're
going to continue to push because this is in not only the interest of the
parties, but in the interest of the U.S. Government.

QUESTION: Would U.S. be ready to exert some financial pressures on Israel to
convince the government to stop settlements?

MR. WOOD: Well, Sylvie, it's premature to talk about that. What we're trying
to do, as I said, right now is to create an environment which makes it
conducive for talks to go forward. And as I said, Senator Mitchell is
working very hard on this. And what we all need to do in the international
community is support this effort, and that means Americans, that means Arabs
and Israelis, to do what they can to kind of foster a climate in which the
two sides can come together and negotiate their differences peacefully so
that we can get to that two-state solution.

QUESTION: But Robert --

MR. WOOD: Yes.

QUESTION: Dan Meridor has said - that the agreement we had with the
Americans is binding on us and them. And he added that they should keep to
the agreement. He's calling the U.S. to keep to the agreement.

MR. WOOD: I think we've been very clear with regard to settlements. They
need to stop, and that includes natural growth. I don't have anything more
to add to that. The Israelis are well aware of our position. And we'll
obviously continue to have talks with the Israelis on this subject and other
issues, but our policy remains the same.

QUESTION: But they are continuing building in --

MR. WOOD: Well, I said, we're having --

QUESTION: -- Jerusalem.

MR. WOOD: -- discussions with our Israeli partners about this issue and a
whole host of other issues related to the Middle East - Middle East peace.
So that's about the best I can offer for you right now.

# # #

State Department: Financial sanctions on Israel 'premature'
Jul. 21, 2009
Herb Keinon and jpost.com , THE JERUSALEM POST
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443870665&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

State Department: Financial sanctions on Israel 'premature'
Jul. 21, 2009
Herb Keinon and jpost.com , THE JERUSALEM POST
It is "premature" to talk about placing financial sanctions on Israel to get
it to stop building beyond the green line, State Department spokesman Robert
Wood said Tuesday night.

Asked at a press briefing whether the US was considering putting financial
pressure on Israel to get it to comply with US demands, Wood said: "It's
premature to talk about that."

"What we're trying to do," he said, "is to create an environment which makes
it conducive for talks to go forward."

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell was working hard on this, Wood said.
"And what we all need to do in the international community is support this
effort, and that means Americans, that means Arabs and Israelis, [must] do
what they can to kind of foster a climate in which the two sides can come
together and negotiate their differences peacefully so that we can get to
that two-state solution."

Senior White House adviser Dennis Ross will join an already crowded list of
top US officials travelling to Israel next week, a step interpreted
positively in Jerusalem as an attempt by the Obama administration to engage
more constructively with Jerusalem.

Diplomatic officials confirmed that Ross, who last month was named special
assistant to the president for the Central Region - a huge region taking in
the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Pakistan and South Asia -
will pay his first visit to Israel next week in his new role. He moved to
the White House from the State Department, where he had a much narrower
portfolio.

Ross will come in the same week as Mitchell, Defense Secretary Robert Gates
and National Security Adviser James Jones, who will be coming with some 10
members of his staff.

Asked about the sudden surge in high-level US visitors, one senior Israeli
diplomatic official said, "It's about time. It's much better that the two
countries discuss the issues between them face-to-face, and not through the
media."

US President Barack Obama has come under some criticism recently for
ignoring Israel while trying to court the Arab world. These high-level
visits, another senior Israeli official said, underscore the importance
Washington continues to attribute to its relations with Jerusalem.

The official said these visits were not tied to the recent spat over plans
to build 20 apartments in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem,
although this issue was sure to be raised.

While the focus of the talks with Mitchell, scheduled to arrive Sunday, is
expected to be the diplomatic process with the Palestinians and the
settlement issue, the discussions with Gates, who will arrive Monday for a
brief stopover of some six hours, are expected to concentrate on Iran.
According to Israeli officials, the US wants to be updated on Israel's
thinking on the matter.

Jones's visit will focus on the US-Israeli strategic dialogue, and the
reason he is bringing such a large staff, Israeli officials said, is that
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's national security adviser, Uzi Arad,
wants to try to model his own NSC after the US paradigm.

Ross, who served as former US president Bill Clinton's senior Middle East
negotiator, is expected to discuss the whole gamut of issues now impacting
US-Israeli relations.

On the brink of this flood of top US officials, one senior Israeli source
noted with satisfaction that the US administration's response to Netanyahu's
pledge to continue building in east Jerusalem despite American opposition
was relatively low-key.

US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley addressed the matter Monday at
the daily press briefing in the State Department, saying the US believed the
issue of construction in east Jerusalem "should be subject to
permanent-status negotiations, and we are concerned that unilateral actions
taken by the Israelis or the Palestinians cannot prejudge the outcome of
these negotiations."

He said the US position on this matter was not new.

But if the US response was relatively low-key, Russia, France and Germany
all called on Israel on Tuesday to stop all settlement construction,
including construction in east Jerusalem, creating what one Israeli source
called "unpleasant momentum."

"The settlement should be stopped immediately in line with the road map,"
AFP quoted Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko as saying,
in reference to the plan to build 20 housing units in Sheikh Jarrah.

The French media reported that its Foreign Ministry would summon Israeli
Ambassador Daniel Shek to protest the plan, and in Germany Reuters quoted
Ruprecht Polenz, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, as
saying Israel ran the risk "of gradually committing suicide as a democratic
state" if it did not stop the construction.

Polenz, head of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, told the
Rheinische Post daily, "Israel is overlooking the fact that neither
Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without east
Jerusalem."

Despite these responses, sources in the Prime Minister's Office said
Netanyahu was determined to continue construction in east Jerusalem as he
saw fit.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon responded to the criticism, saying in a
statement from his office that Israel acted "according to the national
interests that are important to it."

This was especially true, he said, in relation to Jerusalem, where its
rights, including the right to build, were inviolable.

In a related development, Alexander Saltanov, Russia's deputy foreign
minister and special presidential representative for the Middle East, held
talks in Jerusalem Tuesday with President Shimon Peres and Foreign Ministry
director-general Yossi Gal.

Upon arriving Monday, he met with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. On
Wednesday he will go to Ramallah for talks with the Palestinian Authority
leadership.

Saltanov regularly visits the region, and prior to arriving in Israel held
meetings in Damascus.