A wide range of articles and directions the talks could take, it will be interesting to see which direction is taken over the next 4-5 days…
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US envoy in bid to rescue tottering Mideast talks
The US envoy to the Middle East was heading to Israel Tuesday to try to rescue Israeli-Palestinian peace talks brought to the brink of collapse by the resumption of West Bank settlement building.
George Mitchell’s latest mission comes as the United States, which is brokering the talks launched on September 2, tries to prevent a walkout by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who says there is no point talking if Israel keeps building settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
Late Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks by telephone described by State Department spokesman Philip Crowley as “very significant, very detailed, very direct.”
Crowley told reporters in Washington the talks built on the pair’s discussions a day earlier, which had centered on the expiry at midnight Sunday of a 10-month moratorium on the building of new settler homes in the West Bank.
“The prime minister understands what our policies are. We understand his ongoing political difficulties,” Crowley said.
“We believe he’s sincerely interested in the process, recognises its importance.”
Netanyahu’s refusal to renew the moratorium has thrown the peace talks into jeopardy and has drawn widespread international criticism, including from the US, Britain, the European Union, France and the United Nations.
As bulldozers across the West Bank roared to life on Monday, Abbas said he would consult his Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organisation this week and meet with Arab foreign ministers on October 4.
“After all these meetings we may be able to issue a position to clarify what is the Palestinian and Arab opinion on this matter,” Abbas said.
The Palestinians have called on Israel to extend the moratorium for three to four months so that the two sides can reach an agreement on final borders that would clarify where Israel can continue building.
Netanyahu has refused to renew the partial freeze, but has urged Abbas to stick with the talks, which were relaunched after a 20-month hiatus.
Crowley announced that Mitchell was on his way to the region late Monday.
“We recognise that given the decision yesterday we still have a dilemma to resolve,” he said. “One way or the other the parties have to find a way to continue direct negotiations.
He praised Abbas for not immediately backing out of the negotiations, saying his “restraint at this point is appreciated.”
Israel’s hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, meanwhile, said Palestinian negotiators had “wasted time” during the settlement moratorium but added that it was important to “keep the political process alive.”
For “nine months the Palestinians wasted time and completely refused to accept this gesture and accused Israel that it’s a fraud, it’s not serious,” Lieberman said after meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
“And today they are exerting pressure to maintain the same moratorium that they previously rejected,” he told reporters in New York.
Hamas, which rules Gaza, called on Abbas to stand by his threat to end the negotiations, which the Islamist movement has always vehemently rejected.
“I call on my brothers at the Palestinian Authority, who had stated they would not pursue talks with the enemy (Israel) if it continued settlement construction, to hold to their promise,” its exiled chief Khaled Meshaal said.
On Monday, settlement construction was under way in several settlements across the West Bank.
There was no major construction taking place, in part because of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, during which Jews are not supposed to work.
And just before the freeze ended, Netanyahu urged settlers to display “restraint and responsibility.”
The Palestinians have long deplored the presence of 500,000 Israelis in more than 120 settlements scattered across the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, lands expected to form the bulk of a future Palestinian state.
The international community views all settlements as illegal.
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Abbas: ‘If building continues we will have to stop talks’
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told radio station Europe 1 that he will stop talks if the settlement freeze is not reinstated, AFP reported on Tuesday.
“We don’t want to stop the talks, but if the building continues, we will have to put a stop to them,” Abbas said. “(Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu must know that peace is more important than settlements.”
“We ask for a moratorium during negotiations, because as long as there are negotiations, there is hope,” he reportedly told the radio station in Arabic.
Earlier on Tuesday, Fatah official Marwan Barghouti said that the US must pressure Israel to stop buildin in order to save the peace talks.In an interview with Al-Hayat, Barghouti said Israel’s leadership is “not serious and not trying to achieve peace.”
“Without requiring Israel to return Palestinian refugees, negotiations are worthless,” he expressed in the interview.
“Obama‘s efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not succeeded up to now,” Barghouti said. “If the US will continue to favor Israel without pressuring it to end the occupation and return to 1967 borders, peace efforts will fail,” he explained.
Barghouti, who is currently serving 67 life sentences in an Israeli prison, also announced his continued support for the armed struggle against Israel.
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Netanyahu: Israel, Palestinians can reach Mideast peace in a year
Prime Minister’s comments released hours after FM Lieberman presents UN with his draft for a population, territory swap, as part of final status peace deal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu countered a controversial United Nations address by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday, rejecting Lieberman’s views on a possible land swap and asserting his belief that Israel and Palestinians could reach a peace deal within a year.
Referring to recent talks with French President Nikolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office said that Netanyahu told the two leaders he hoped “the positive talks with Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] would continue.”
“It is vital, and I wholeheartedly believe that it is within our power to reach a framework agreement within a year and change Middle East history,” the PM reportedly said.
The Prime Minister’s Office added that the premier also accepted Sarkozy’s invitation to a peace summit to be held in Paris during the coming October, which would also be attended by Abbas.
Earlier Tuesday, Lieberman presented the UN General Assembly with his draft for a population and territory swap, as part of an eventual peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
Under Lieberman’s controversial scheme, part of Israel’s Arab population would be moved to a newly created Palestinian state, in return for evacuation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
“A final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians has to be based on a program of exchange of territory and populations,” Lieberman told the UN General Assembly in New York.
An earlier statement by the Prime Minister’s Office stated that “Lieberman’s address was not coordinated with the prime minister,” adding that “Netanyahu is the one handling the negotiations on Israel’s behalf. The various issues surrounding a peace agreement will be discussed and decided only at the negotiating table, and nowhere else.”
The PMO’s statement Tuesday essentially put Netanyahu and Lieberman on a public collision course, after the foreign minister effectively expressed his disagreement with Netanyahu’s peace-talks policies. While aides to the prime minister admitted that Lieberman’s scheme has come up during internal discussions, no official decision as to his stance have been made, they said.
State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley, referring to the possibility the Israeli prime minister and defense minister are at odds concerning the ongoing direct peace talks with the PA, said: “Maybe there are divergent vision between the Prime Minister and the Foreign minister, I’ll defer to the Israeli government to explain the difference. I will let the Israeli government comment on whether it reflects the views of the Israeli government.”
Asked by Haaretz whether PM Netanyahu can still deliver an agreement if his foreign minister does not coordinate a major speech with him, Crowley said: “We are not surprised. We knew Prime Minister Netanyahu faces some tough domestic politics issues.”
Asked whether the U.S. administration officials are frustrated with the current stalemate and what was depicted as “scrambling” to keep both sides at the table:
“I wouldn’t characterize what we are doing in that way. We understood when both parties agreed to get into negotiations – September 26 – we saw it was coming, our position [on settlements moratorium] is clear, it was announced by the president and secretary of state.”
“Are we frustrated? Of course we are frustrated but we understand these are very difficult… we’ve been at it for some time and the issues are not yet resolved because they’ve been very complex,” Crowley said.
“We take some comfort in the fact that the people involved in the process, we know them well, we know the issues and the parameters of the solution. That’s why we believe we can solve an issue within a year,” the State Department spokesman said, adding that the U.S. understands the parties “are in intense period of time and need to help both sides to resolve the immediate situation and to stay in the negotiations.”
“It’s important for both Israel and the Palestinians to remain in direct negotiations,” Crowley said, adding “both sides showed restraint, and we hope we have (time) to work these issues through.”
In his address, the foreign minister stressed that his proposals did not represent a scheme for “populations transfer,” a phrase that evokes historical proposals by Israel’s extreme right to evict Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza altogether.
“We are not talking about population transfer but about defining borders so as best to reflect the demographic reality,” said.
But the ideas are nevertheless likely to provoke an angry response, especially from Israeli Arabs, who make up some 20 percent of the country’s population.
This is not the first time that Lieberman, whose ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party is the second-largest in Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, has put forward the controversial proposals.
A latest round of peace talks, which kicked off in Washington in early September, hit a deadlock at midnight on Sunday when Israel’s self-imposed freeze on settlement building expired. It remains uncertain if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will carry out threats to walk out of negotiations unless the freeze is renewed.
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Lieberman presents plans for population exchange at UN
Controversial scheme would see part of Israel’s Arab population moved to a newly created Palestinian state, in return for evacuation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday presented the United Nations with his draft for a population and territory swap, as part of an eventual peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
Under Lieberman’s controversial scheme, part of Israel’s Arab population would be moved to a newly created Palestinians state, in return for evacuation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
“A final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians has to be based on a program of exchange of territory and populations,” Lieberman told the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The foreign minister stressed that his proposals did not represent a scheme for “populations transfer”, a phrase that evokes historical proposals by Israel’s extreme right to evict Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza altogether.
“We are not talking about population transfer but about defining borders so as best to reflect the demographic reality,” said.
But the ideas are nevertheless likely to provoke an angry reponse, especially from Israeli Arabs, who make up some 20 percent of the country’s population.
This is not the first time that Lieberman, whose ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party is the second-largest in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, has put forward the controversial proposals.
But his decision to place them before the General Assembly in his role as foreign minister will raise speculation over whether they are his private plan, or the official policy of the Israeli government, and Netanyahu is likely to face international calls for clarification.
A latest round of peace talks, which kicked off in Washington in early September, hit a deadlock at midnight on Sunday when Israel’s self-imposed freeze on settlement building expired. It remains uncertain if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will carry out threats to walk out of negotiations unless the freeze is renewed.
Lieberman,the firebrand leader of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party and himself a resident of a West Bank settlement, has said repeatedly he will evacuate his home in the event of a peace agreement.
Yet Lieberman believes peace with the Palestinians could never be achieved until the Middle East confronts a greater threat, Iran.
“Iran can exist without Hamas but Hamas can’t exist without Iran,” he told UN delegates.
Hamas militants seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 and receive financial backing from the Iranian government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“In order to solve a range of problems in the Middle East, not just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you have to solve the Iranian problem first,” he said.
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myBlessedHope 