Did George Mitchell threaten to cut off Israeli aid?

Mitchell is headed back to the region within the next week or two. He'll probably stop in Cairo, Riyadh and Amman, in addition to Jerusalem and Ramallah. As we reported earlier this week, he's trying to convince Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to resume talks on borders. Mitchell (and the Obama administration) want to conclude those talks within nine months, before Netanyahu's ten-month partial settlement freeze ends.

Mitchell met in Washington yesterday with the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers, as did U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Here's what Clinton said about the borders/settlements issue after her meeting with Jordanian FM Nasser Judeh:

And as Minister Judeh and I discussed earlier, resolving borders resolves settlements; resolving Jerusalem resolves settlements. So I think we need to lift our sights, and instead of being - looking down at the trees, we need to look at the forest. Where are we headed together? We know what a final resolution will have to include: borders, security, Jerusalem, refugees, water. We know what the elements of this two-state solution must include.

And here's Judeh, who said "time is not on our side" when it comes to final status talks:

We've said it in the past: we've had too much process and not enough peace. What we don't need in the region right now is another open-ended process that leaves issues unresolved and leaves loose ends without being tied. So it's important. And yes, final status issues as the Secretary listed them are known to everybody, but if you sort out borders, if you resolve the question of borders, then you automatically resolve not only settlements in Jerusalem but you identify the nature on the ground of the two-state solution and how it looks like. And then all other things fit in place.

But this borders-first push is unlikely to find much support among Palestinians. Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator, told reporters today that Abbas will not restart talks until Israel fully freezes settlement growth.

"You cannot have discussions on borders while the territory you want to set up your state on is being eaten up by the settlements."

Abdel Bari Atwan, the influential editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, has a caustic column today (عربي) headlined "The Arab crawl to Washington." He argues that the Obama administration is desperate to achieve something on the Israeli-Palestinian front to make up for other setbacks in the Islamic world (in Iran, Afghanistan, etc.). And he predicts the administration will "put pressure on the weaker party" -- the Palestinians -- and force them back to the negotiating table without securing a complete settlement freeze.