President Obama’s Middle-East envoy George Mitchell is heading to the region this week, trying to salvage the resumption of indirect peace-talks. As Washington presses Israel to halt new construction in the East Jerusalem. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told us that the 1,600 new Israeli housing units that are proposed are an insult to US efforts, and that she expects both sides not to undermine this new chance for peace-talks.
-You spoke in your speech to the United Nations about how women are most often affected by conflict?
-Right.
-Yet they are kept from the negotiating table. Now you’re Secretary of State, you are not kept from the negotiating table, but here you are with the Middle-East just beginning to approach negotiations and Israel announces its expansion of settlements. It was really a slap in the face to the visiting vice president.
-It was, Andrea, and I’ve expressed that directly to the Prime Minister, it was not just an unfortunate incident of timing, but the substance was you know something that is not needed as we are attempting to move toward the resumption of negotiations. And the United States is a strong supporter of the security of Israel, always have been, always will be. We share common values and there is so much that Israel represents that we support. But we believe in the two-state solution. The Prime Minister has said he believes in it and we wanna see confidence building measures and actions that will result in the resumption of negotiations and then a move toward the resolution of the final status issues.
-But this is a setback and insulting.
-It was insulting, and it was insulting not just to the vice president who certainly didn’t deserved that, he was there with a very clear message of commitment to the peace process, solidarity with the Israeli people, but it was an insult to the United States. I mean the United States is deeply invested in trying to work with the parties in order to bring about this resolution. We don’t get easily discouraged, so we are working toward the resumption of the negotiations, but we expect Israel and the Palestinians to do their part and not to take any actions that will undermine the chance that we can achieve the two-state solution.
-And you can watch our full interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on our website ANDREA.MSNBC.COM.
