George Mitchell pissed some people off during his time as a mediator in Northern Ireland. But at the end of the day, he delivered an agreement. And when the agreement wound up in some choppy waters, heads were knocked together and the thing was made to work. And today, Protestants and Catholics alike are better off than they used to be. It’s an auspicious background for an envoy to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way. Gary Bauer, for example, has joined Abe Foxman in warning that Mitchell might be too even-handed—shudder.

Rep. Bill Delahunt takes a different view, though, and has introduced a resolution into the House of Representatives in support of Mitchell. Thus far, he has 53 co-sponsors and J Street is trying to get some more.

Max Bermann had a great post the other day comparing George Mitchell’s challenge in his new task to his work in Northern Ireland:

Now his past success in Northern Ireland does not mean that this will be easily replicated. But the challenges that posed a successful resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict were in some ways greater than they are in the Middle East. Mitchell had to usher through an incredibly complicated agreement that had to enable peaceful co-habitation of the warring parties and establish innovative ways to overlap Northern Ireland’s sovereignty with the Republic and with the UK. Not only did achieving peace in Northern Ireland require getting Protestants and Catholics to live peaceably together, but required getting them to govern together – ie Martin McGuiness a former IRA gunman worked on education policy with Ian Paisley. At least, Mitchell doesn’t have to get Netanyahu to form a government with Hamas leader Ismail Haniya. And at least in the Middle East both sides generally know what the final terms of a peace agreement will be – partition into two distinct states.

Mitchell’s challenge isn’t so much getting to “yes” on an agreement but merely getting to the table. While in Ireland all sides were exhausted and were willing to take bold steps to begin negotiations – such as John Major quietly dropping the UK’s vow not to “negotiate with terrorists” and beginning talks with Sinn Fein and Sinn Fein’s acceptance of a status short of a united Ireland – in the Middle East the split between Hamas and Fatah, Israel’s refusal to negotiate with Hamas, and Hamas’ refusal to move down from its maximalist stance means simply getting to the table with all relevant players seems almost impossible. So Mitchell’s job over the next few years in terms of the peace process seems less about getting to “yes” and more about trying to rekindle momentum for peace that could eventually serve to push the parties to the negotiating table.

Along these lines, one of the key things an envoy will need to do—and I’m not entirely sure how you do it—is clear out the cobwebs of pessimism that are clinging to both sides. The failure of the Oslo Process has tended to inspire a sense of hopelessness in both the Israeli and Palestinian populations, where both sides are sincerely, if falsely, convinced that they did everything possible to make peace a reality and were stymied entirely by the perfidy of the other side. A more optimistic way of looking at it would be to say that between Ehud Barak’s proposals at the end of his time prime minister and the Arab League’s proposals in 2002, the two sides’ negotiating positions have never been closer together.

That’s not, at the moment, generally the way it’s seen in the region. But one good aspect of having a veteran of a successful peace process in another part of the world is that you have to think Mitchell has some ability to inspire optimism and to get people to see the tragic failure of the Oslo Process in that more upbeat light—it’s tragic precisely because the parties got so close before things went south.

Shmuel Rosner slams George Mitchell in The New Republic. Another case of George Mitchell having the right enemies, and Barack Obama showing some guts and good sense.

Yesterday, Abe Foxman took the weird step of complaining that George Mitchell is “fair” and therefore somehow unsuited to serve as an envoy overseeing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Today, Foxman whined to Ben Smith that Mitchell is “a fair person, he’s a decent person, he’s a knowledgeable person – but I think he is the personification of even-handedness.” Foxman, you see, is looking for an envoy who’ll eschew even-handedness.

I understand that Foxman thinks he’s helping Israel by demanding that the U.S. only appoint envoys who’ll be biased toward Israel, but that’s an incredibly short-sighted view. Wiser pro-Israel figures like J Street’s Jeremy Ben Ami are applauding the choice:

The choice of Senator Mitchell signals the President’s serious intention to inject new thinking and fresh perspectives into America’s efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

President Obama spoke eloquently Tuesday about the important role the United States must play in ushering in a new era of peace and in helping people around the world to move beyond old hatreds and lines of tribe. We share and endorse his vision both of a new direction for U.S. policy in the Middle East and of renewed American leadership in Middle East peacemaking.

Former Senate Majority leader George Mitchell is uniquely well suited to play a critical role in that effort. His many accomplishments – including brokering Ireland’s Good Friday peace accord and his well-received report on the causes of the Second Intifada – are rooted in his ability to listen and to speak to both sides in conflicts and to provide the leadership needed to solve long-standing problems.

Israel has a strong interest in peace. And achieving peace requires the United States to participate in a credible way. If President Obama were to send someone over there who’ll just repeat Israeli government talking points, that won’t help anyone. Credible American intervention can, by contrast, deliver Israel the security goods that military strength never has. We’ve seen it in the past with deals with Egypt and Jordan. And we could see it again with Syria and, one hopes, with the Palestinians and—via the Arab Peace Initiative—with the entire Arab League. Ultimately, that would do far more to advance Israeli interests than would any yes-man.

I think Anti-Defamation League honcho Abe Foxman better think harder about this:

Some Jewish leaders say the very qualities that may appeal to the Obama administration — Mitchell’s reputation as an honest broker — could spark unhappiness, if not outright opposition, from some pro-Israel groups.

“Sen. Mitchell is fair. He’s been meticulously even-handed,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “But the fact is, American policy in the Middle East hasn’t been ‘even handed’ — it has been supportive of Israel when it felt Israel needed critical U.S. support.”

“So I’m concerned,” Foxman continued. “I’m not sure the situation requires that kind of approach in the Middle East.”

For one thing, I’m not thrilled to see Foxman talking about this issue at all which seems far afield from the ADL’s mandate. But the position he’s taking is also incredibly stupid—nobody comes out against fairness. It’d be one thing to complain that Mitchell is somehow biased against Israel in a problematic way, but Foxman’s complaining that he’s too fair and even-handed. That’s absurd. Fair is a good quality in an envoy.

In the very early days of the Bush administration, George Mitchell was sent to the Holy Land to do a report on the Second Intifada. The resulting document contained ideas that, had Bush actually followed them, could conceivably have done a ton of good. One of the things on Mitchell’s agenda was a freeze of all settlement activity:

Settlements: The GOI also has a responsibility to help rebuild confidence. A cessation of Palestinian-Israeli violence will be particularly hard to sustain unless the GOI freezes all settlement construction activity. Settlement activities must not be allowed to undermine the restoration of calm and the resumption of negotiations.

On each of our two visits to the region, there were Israeli announcements regarding expansion of settlements, and it was almost always the first issue raised by Palestinians with whom we met. The GOI describes its policy as prohibiting new settlements but permitting expansion of existing settlements to accommodate “natural growth.” Palestinians contend that there is no distinction between “new” and “expanded” settlements; and that, except for a brief freeze during the tenure of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, there has been a continuing, aggressive effort by Israel to increase the number and size of settlements.

This is something I’ve written about several times in the past couple of weeks. And I think that absolutely the biggest thing President Obama could do to move the situation in a constructive direction would be serious public and private pressure on Israel for a total freeze on settlement activity. Appointing Mitchell to be his envoy to the region indicates some understanding of the importance of this issue. But as Mitchell’s report makes clear, settlement expansion has continued in the past despite nominal US opposition. Getting the job done will require something more robust.