The newly appointed U.S. envoy to the Middle East, former Senator George Mitchell, is expected to arrive in Israel this week, reports on Saturday said. U.S. President Barack Obama gave Mitchell the job last Thursday, saying that Mitchell was being sent to ensure that the cease fire in Gaza lasts.
Mitchell, 75, is a former Senate majority leader who led peace negotiations between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, an effort that led to the 1998 accord aimed at stemming the long-standing conflict there. He led a commission appointed by former President Bill Clinton to find ways to halt Israeli-Arab violence. His 2001 report called for Israelis to freeze building in Judea and Samaria, as well as for the Palestinian Authority to prevent terrorist attacks and punish those who perpetrate them.
In that report, Mitchell wrote "Some Israelis appear not to comprehend the humiliation and frustration that Palestinians must endure every day as a result of living with the continuing effects of occupation, sustained by the presence of Israeli military forces and settlements in their midst," while "Some Palestinians appear not to comprehend the extent to which terrorism creates fear among the Israeli people and undermines their belief in the possibility of co-existence." At the time, some Israelis said that the report appeared to be equating the devastating effects of Arab terrorist attacks at the height of the intifada with Israel's attempts to defend itself from those attacks.