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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/world/slot2_20090126.html
Former U.S. Diplomat: Mitchell's Prospects "Slim to None"
[Council on Foreign Relations-New York Times] Bernard Gwertzman - Aaron David Miller, who was a top U.S. Middle East negotiator for ten years, says that despite naming George Mitchell as a new special envoy, the administration has "no intention of making major changes in America's approach to the Arab-Israeli issue, because right now, the prospects of any sort of conflict-ending agreement between Israelis and Palestinians are slim to none." "Gaza has so many moving parts - anti-smuggling, opening the crossing points, dealing with securing a longer-term arrangement between Israel and Hamas on the security side, the prisoner issue...and of course, the tricky issue of reconstructing Gaza and providing enough humanitarian relief....These things are going to absorb most of Mitchell's time." "It's safe to assume that there will be no change - none, absolutely none - in the administration's approach to Hamas." "By statute, literally by legislation, the United States is prevented from providing any economic or material assistance to Hamas. We have made a judgment by virtue of our own politics and our own priorities that we have no intention of engaging Hamas politically. And for a new president, who...is trying to fix America's broken house, the last thing he needs is a fight. It would be a messy one with the government of Israel and the pro-Israel political community in the United States even if he started an indirect dialogue with Hamas. And frankly, right now, dealing with Hamas is the key to an empty room."