What The State Department Says

Here comes State:

Patrick Ventrell, Director
Daily Press Briefing,

Washington, DC

July 9, 2012

...

QUESTION:

Just also on this topic, there’s an Israeli Government appointed committee which was looking into – was asked to look into the legality of the settlements and has come forth with a ruling saying that they believe that essentially these settlements should be authorized, which is the Prime Minister’s position. The Israeli Government hasn’t accepted this ruling yet, but that sort of stands ready to be accepted. Do you guys take any view on this sort of creeping legalization of the settlement process? And is this useful at this point ahead of Deputy Secretary Burns and the Secretary’s trip to Israel? Is this the kind of thing that you like to see happening?


MR. VENTRELL: Well, I mean, Andy, you know where we are on – the U.S. position on settlements is clear. Obviously, we’ve seen the reports that an Israeli Government appointed panel has recommended legalizing dozens of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity and we oppose any effort to legalize settlement outposts.


QUESTION: So you would be – you would urge the Government of Israel not to accept this panel’s recommendation?


MR. VENTRELL: Well, again, my understanding is this is still – I’m not sure if this is in a draft form, but this is just a panel recommendation at this point.


QUESTION: And the Israeli Government can either accept it or not accept it. What do --


MR. VENTRELL: You know where the U.S. position is, which I just read out. So --


QUESTION: Is that going to be something that Deputy Burns brings up when he’s in Israel?


MR. VENTRELL: I’m not sure. I can’t read out his meetings in advance. But --


QUESTION: Understand. But you don’t think this rises to the level of a senior official discussing it with the Israeli --


MR. VENTRELL: Again, I don’t want to read out his meetings in advance. Let’s --


QUESTION: Well, is it something that you can say that you’re sufficiently concerned about that --


MR. VENTRELL: We’re concerned about it, obviously. The Deputy Secretary will be en route, and let’s see how his meetings go and see if we can report back to you when they’re over.


QUESTION: All right.


MR. VENTRELL: Said.


QUESTION: A quick follow-up on this. When you express your concern, is it just done from this podium, or is it done officially? Does someone pick up the phone and talk to someone in the Israeli Government and say we express displeasure?


MR. VENTRELL: I don’t know if we have raised this directly with the Israeli Government. I just read out our position here from the podium. I can check and see if our Embassy has raised it.

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July 10, 2012

...

QUESTION: While we’re on Israel --

MR. VENTRELL: Said.

QUESTION: I know you addressed it partially yesterday, the commission, the Edmond Levy Commission, suggesting that the West Bank is not under occupation and that Israelis have a right to own land on the West Bank. Do you think that the Secretary, once she visits with the Israeli Prime Minister, she will urge him to reject that commission report?

MR. VENTRELL: Well, as you know, as the Secretary has mentioned, she’ll be going to the region next week about this time. Obviously, we’re still about a week out, so I don’t want to prejudge what she may or may not raise in those meetings, but she looks forward to her visit.

QUESTION: But there’s been no change in your position that the West Bank is under occupation?

MR. VENTRELL: Our position – I read out very carefully yesterday about where we are on the issue of settlements broadly speaking, and that’s all I have for you.

QUESTION: Not on the issue of the settlement, the report suggested the West Bank is not under occupation. You certainly reject that, correct? That stands in opposition to your tradition position.

MR. VENTRELL: Again, I’m not going to characterize where we are on this, other than to say that the U.S. position is longstanding and it hasn’t changed.

Oh, and this, too:

QUESTION: All right. And then going back to the question I raised yesterday about the Global Counterterrorism Forum --

MR. VENTRELL: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- did you get an answer on that?

MR. VENTRELL: Well, as you know, as we said at the time, Matt, that our idea with the Global Counterterrorism Forum was to bring together a limited number of traditional donors, frontline states, and emerging powers to develop a more robust yet representative counterterrorism capacity-building platform. A number of our close partners with considerable experience counting and – countering and preventing terrorism are not included among the GCTF’s founding members. We’ve discussed the GCTF and ways to involve Israel and its activities on a number of occasions, and we’re committed to making this happen. QUESTION: Okay. That last line is exactly what was in the taken question from, I believe, June 8^th. Can you say --

MR. VENTRELL: And that’s exactly where we are today.

QUESTION: Okay. What was done between then and this last meeting, which was just yesterday? There was a month span there, and I realize that diplomacy can move slowly. What did you do in the interim period there to get Israel involved? Because it’s my understanding that Israel very much wants to be involved in this and perhaps – and it certainly is a frontline state, as you said yesterday --

MR. VENTRELL: Yep.

QUESTION: -- that it has been the victim of terrorism and has been extremely successful in combating it as well, I think. So other frontline states that you mentioned who were left out – I’m not aware that they have evinced any interests – or any particular interest – in joining this group, so Israel has, so I’m just wondering what did the CT Bureau or whoever’s in charge of this do in the interim to get Israel included?

MR. VENTRELL: We continued to discuss it with the GCTF.

QUESTION: Does that mean that it’s a problem at the co-chair?

MR. VENTRELL: No. It means we’re continuing the discussion, and you know where our position is on this, and we’re working with our partners, and I don’t have anything --

QUESTION: Well, I mean, I’d just like to know what you did in the interim between June 8^th and July 9^th to work on this, on your commitment to getting Israel involved.

MR. VENTRELL: I imagine it was raised at a number of different levels, but let me check for you, Matt, and get back to you.

QUESTION: Okay. Because if you have done something, it suggests that there’s some opposition to them joining this, and that opposition – there’s a lot of speculation that opposition would come from the co-chair of this group, which is Turkey.

MR. VENTRELL: Well, let me find out at what levels we raised it and get back to you after the briefing, Matt.

QUESTION: Thank you.

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See  Kredo -  http://freebeacon.com/israels-plight-ignored/


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