Obama-Mitchell peace mission gains a little momentum

Haaretz’s Barak Ravid had more details yesterday of the meeting an official Israeli delegation held in London last Tuesday with Obama’s special Mideast peace envoy Sen. George Mitchell and his team.
He quoted one senior Israeli official as saying after the meeting,

“We’re disappointed… All of the understandings reached during the [George W.] Bush administration are worth nothing.”

He adds these details:

The Israeli delegation consisted of National Security Adviser Uzi Arad, Netanyahu diplomatic envoy Yitzhak Molcho, Defense Ministry chief of staff Mike Herzog and deputy prime minister Dan Meridor.
Herzog spoke to Mitchell and his staff about understandings reached by former prime ministers Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon with the Bush administration on allowing continued building in the large West Bank settlement blocs. He asked that a similar agreement be reached with the Obama government.
Meridor spoke of the complexities characterizing the coalition headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and said Washington’s demands of a complete construction freeze would lead to the dissolution of the Netanyahu government.
The Israeli delegates were stunned by the uncompromising U.S. stance, and by statements from Mitchell and his staff that agreements reached with the Bush administration were unacceptable. An Israeli official privy to the talks said that “the Americans took something that had been agreed on for many years and just stopped everything.”
…The Israeli envoys said the demand for a total settlement freeze was not only unworkable, but would not receive High Court sanction. Tensions reportedly reached a peak when, speaking of the Gaza disengagement, the Israelis told their interlocutors, “We evacuated 8,000 settlers on our own initiative,” to which Mitchell responded simply, “We’ve noted that here.”

There’s a lot to comment on there!
Firstly, why should Pres. Obama be at all worried by the prospect that too “tough” a US line might “lead to the dissolution of the Netanyahu government”??
Secondly, why should any Israelis imagine that a possible ruling of their own judiciary should be expected by anyone else to over-ride the clear requirements of international diplomacy and international law regarding the– actually quite illegal– project of planting Jewish-Israeli settlers in occupied land?
Then, toward the end of the piece, Ravid writes this,

Defense Minister Ehud Barak will travel to Washington on Sunday [yesterday– or next week? not clear] in an attempt to put further pressure on the Obama administration.

So Arad, Molcho, and Co. were unsuccessful in snowing G. Mitchell with their arguments– and now, Netanyahu sends Ehud Barak to Washington… to speak with whom?
This does look just the teeniest bit like Netanyahu and E. Barak trying to go behind Mitchell’s back and speak with other heavyweights in washington… Perhaps E Barak also hopes to speak with the president himself?
If it is an attempt to go behind Mitchell’s back, I am pretty certain it will backfire.
Sen. Mitchell had experience of that, after all, during his first go-round with dealing with the Palestine Question, back in 2001. Also, let’s just recall that he is by no means a political lightweight in Washington…
(Small authorial note. I’m in Damascus, having traveled here overland from Capadoccia over the past 48 hours. The combination of travel and being in Syria means I haven’t been as well plugged-in or as timely as usual on these stories. However, I’ve been gathering LOTS of great new material which will appear here and elsewhere over the weeks ahead. ~HC)