Bold statement again, it feels like we are accelerating in intensity, even though we are not making any progress. Do you feel it too?
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Palestinian state within 2 months?
TEL AVIV – The White House is planning intensive Israeli-Palestinian talks that aim to create the borders of a future Palestinian state within two months, according to Palestinian Authority officials speaking to WND.
While such talks seem ambitious, the negotiations are timed around the possible acceptance by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a two-month freeze-extension barring Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.
A PA source conceded the talks likely will not lead to an agreement within two months.
“The U.S. proposed intensive negotiations regarding borders, meaning in the coming two months borders will be clear and maybe even closed,” said the source. “It’s very ambitious and is a lot to expect.”
The U.S. called on Netanyahu to extend a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank. As a U.S.-imposed precondition for negotiations, Netanyahu in late 2009 had agreed to a 10-month West Bank construction moratorium that expired at the end of last month.
The Israeli leader repeatedly had claimed he would not extend the freeze beyond the 10-month period, but Israeli media reports quote sources in Netanyahu’s office stating he is considering a two-month extension.
While Netanyahu has not made any public statements regarding a freeze extension, the Israeli government sources told WND the prime minister will not allow any new Jewish construction in the foreseeable future in the West Bank or eastern sections of Jerusalem, excluding what are known as the three mainsettlement blocs – Gush Etzion, Maale Adumin and Ariel.
PA officials, meanwhile, said the U.S. has been negotiating the borders of a future Palestinian state that would see Israel eventually withdraw from most of the West Bank and some areas of eastern Jerusalem with the exception of the three blocs.
While the PA does not believe it will see an actual Palestinian state within a year, it expects in that time it will take over many more neighborhoods in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem that normally are controlled on the ground by Israel.
The PA said the expectation is based on pledges by the Obama administration. They said the U.S. received a pledge from Netanyahu to transfer more security control of West Bank towns as well as release a number of Palestinian prisoners as gestures to entice Abbas to stay in the talks.
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Peace process: Is freeze deal in works?
Officials involved in peace process say Bibi close to finalizing deal that would enable talks to continue, Time Magazine reports; PA’s Abed Rabbo: No serious political process while Netanyahu’s government pursues settlements
A senior Palestinian official said on Thursday he saw no hope of a serious peace process with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as long as settlement construction continues.
“There will be no serious political process while Netanyahu’s government pursues settlements,” Abed Rabbo told Voice of Palestine radio.
However, other American, Israeli, and Palestinian officials expressed optimism about breaking the current impasse and resume direct peace talks, Time Magazine reported in its online edition.
A US official said PM Netanyahu was close to finalizing a deal to keep the negotiations going, Time said. Other Palestinian officials expressed similar sentiments, while Israeli officials said the prime minister wants the talks to continue.
Abbas and Netanyahu met three times before the end of the moratorium. The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) said on Saturday talks would not resume until Israel halted settlement building on land where the Palestinians aim to found a state.
The US and EU had called on Israel to extend the settlement freeze. The expiry of the moratorium had been seen as an early obstacle facing US President Barack Obama’s push to end the six-decade-old conflict within a year.
Before the peace talks got under way, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had himself raised doubts over the chances of peace with an Israeli government headed by Netanyahu. But Palestinian officials had avoided such remarks once direct negotiations began in Washington. The Palestinians say settlement growth on land occupied by Israel in 1967 will make establishment of a viable Palestinian state impossible.
Netanyahu has called on the Palestinians to continue the talks. Abbas will brief the Arab League’s peace process follow-up committee on the state of the talks with Israel on Friday in Libya. The meeting will be followed by an Arab summit on Saturday.
Abed Rabbo said he expected Arab support for the Palestinian position. “The discussion at the upcoming Arab summit and the Arab follow-up committee will be about the coming political choices and not about whether there will be negotiations while settlement is going on,” he said.
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Rivlin ‘positive’ PM won’t divide Jerusalem
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will not give in to requests for concessions in Jerusalem from US President Barack Obama and Palestinian leaders, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin declared firmly in an interview with The Jerusalem Post in his office on Wednesday.
Rivlin, a proud Jerusalemite whose family has lived in the capital for more than a century, acknowledged that Netanyahu would be under significant pressure in the months ahead, but said he was convinced that the prime minister would be able to say no to the American administration at the moment of truth.
“I faithfully believe that Netanyahu won’t think about dividing Jerusalem,” Rivlin said. “He might agree to autonomy for Muslims at their holy sites, but not to sovereignty. I am following him with my eyes shut.”
Rivlin was referencing the story about former education minister Zalman Aranne, who said he followed prime minister David Ben-Gurion with his eyes shut, but opened them frequently just to double-check the prime minister had his eyes open.
“I am positive that Netanyahu is incapable of dividing Jerusalem because he realizes that it is the heart of the matter, the reason for the state to exist,” Rivlin said.
“A follower of Herzl like Netanyahu won’t concede on Jerusalem. If I hadn’t believed in Netanyahu [on this issue], I would have had to run against him – even though I don’t want to be prime minister.” Asked whether giving the Palestinian Authority control over Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem would constitute dividing the city, Rivlin replied that he and other Israeli leaders had explained to Obama when he visited Israel as a presidential candidate in July 2008 that dividing the capital was impossible because Jewish and Arab neighborhoods were interspersed.
“People tell me that the Jewish people did not pray for 3,000 years to return to Wallaje [an Arab neighborhood in east Jerusalem],” Rivlin said. “[But] the people who say that don’t know where Wallaje is, and how important it is. And the Jewish people obviously prayed to return to the Temple Mount – so giving it up must be unacceptable.”
Rivlin called the United States “an important friend with whom we have been disagreeing for 43 years.” He added that just as Israel settled 300,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria and called Jerusalem its capital despite American opposition, Israel can tell the American administration no to a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 borders.
The Knesset speaker would prefer to continue the current situation in which Jews and Arabs live together to the creation of a Palestinian state. He dismissed the demographic arguments the Kadima Party uses to push for territorial compromises and Israel Beiteinu uses to advocate keeping pre-1967 Israeli-Arab towns out of Israel’s final borders.
“Separation, to me, means accepting a permanent state of war,” Rivlin said. “Instituting an artificial solution won’t bring peace.
“If you ask me what is preferable – dividing the land or living together while dealing with a demographic threat, I think dividing the land is worse.
“If we are destined to live together, we can,” Rivlin said. “But don’t threaten me with a demographic threat, because if that’s what matters, David Ben- Gurion would never have declared a state.”
A one-state solution, Rivlin added, was “the lesser of all evils” for “people who are destined, not doomed, to live together.”
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Abbas demands settlement freeze before talks continue
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday that the Palestinians will not continue direct talks if building in the settlements continues, Israel Radio reported.
In a meeting with PLO figures in Jordan, Abbas demanded an official commitment to renew the building moratorium.
The PA leader reportedly claimed that the Palestinians gave all the guarantees and fulfilled all their commitments, but Israel has not taken one step towards peace.
Several senior Palestinians said the US has proposed the two-month extension of the building moratorium.
US working frantically to salvage talks
A US official close to the negotiations said Wednesday that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seems likely to cut a deal to keep the talks going. Palestinian officials said much the same, and Israeli officials said Netanyahu does not want talks to founder.
All spoke on condition of anonymity because the deliberations are closed and no decisions have been made. All the parties have previously said they want to continue negotiations, but the talks remain in limbo.
The White House is working furiously, applying pressure, floating proposals and making promises to both sides, before a Friday gathering of Arab leaders whose backing the Palestinians need in order to go forward.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met Wednesday with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who represents the “Quartet” of international Mideast peacemakers, to try to find a solution. On Tuesday she spoke with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.
“We’re at a critical stage in the process,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday.
“We want to see the negotiations continue,” he said. “We don’t want to see the parties step away from this process, and we continue to offer ideas to both sides as to how to navigate through the settlement issue that currently confronts us.”
An Israeli official said Netanyahu was sounding out colleagues on a proposal to extend the slowdown for 60 days. Four of Israel’s seven cabinet ministers were opposed, the official said. Netanyahu’s own position was not clear.
US officials caution that they do not know exactly what Netanyahu will do. For some Israeli politicians in his complex governing coalition, the collapse of talks, and an opportunity to blame both the United States and the Palestinians for it, would be a welcome outcome.
Compromise on Jordan Valley security forces
A former US official with knowledge of the secretive American proposals now before Netanyahu said they are extremely vague, particularly about the composition of a security force in the Jordan Valley after a peace deal is signed.
The former official said the U.S. has proposed to “recognize Israel’s security concerns and needs in the Jordan Valley as they exist today.” The official said the proposal stops well short of endorsing an Israel Army presence there.
The language could be used, however, to signal that the United States would not object to international peacekeepers in the Jordan Valley, possibly with Israeli participation.
Abbas, however, said at the PLO meeting that he is against the proposal that Israel maintain a presence in the Jordan Valley after a peace agreement, Israel Radio reported.
Yasser Abed-Rabo, a chief PLO official, said at the meeting that the whole world understands that there will be no peace talks if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu continues his current policies.
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myBlessedHope 