myBlessedHope

More tension around the peace process.   Last week I posted an article that the PA was planning to ask the UN to proclaim the PA an independent state outside the peace process, this looks like the response to both sides.  It is amazing to watch all of this unfold and for little Israel to be the central focus of the world.  Especially with everything else going on, just think about it…

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UN Message on Negotiations was a Veiled Warning to PA

A diplomatic United Nations warning, interpreted by pro-Arab media as aimed at Israel, also was a veiled message to the Palestinian Authority not to try to ask the international body to declare the PA as a country.

Assistant Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco told the UN Security Council on Monday that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon believes “if the door to peace closes it will be very hard to open.”  However Taranco added—in statement that was not as widely quoted—that “there is no alternative to a negotiated settlement resulting in the creation of an independent and viable” PA state.

News agencies, such as the Associated Press, told readers that direct talks between PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are stalled because of the issue of building for Jews in Judea and Samaria. The news agency added, “Ban has called those settlements illegal.”

Taranco’s remarks as warning to Abbas as well as Israel was noted by the Yemen News Agency SABA, which said his statement was “an apparent attempt to dissuade the PA from unilaterally declaring an independent state or from seeking support to do so from the Council or the General Assembly, as stated by Palestinian officials last week.”

Such a declaration implicitly would have to include borders, whose determination is one of the main objectives of talks with Israel.

Nevertheless, most media and the pro-Arab bloc have concentrated on Monday’s United Nations Security Council condemnation of Israel’s approval for 238 new residential units for Jews in Jerusalem. Egypt suggested that the international community may have to impose conditions for a PA-Israeli agreement.

South Africa declared, “The Security Council has to shoulder its responsibility for ending the Israeli occupation and [for] ensuring the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination is met.”

Despite his warning, Taranco left no doubt that he considers a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria and united Jerusalem as contradictory to peace. He also ridiculed Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence that Abbas recognize Israel as a Jewish nation. Israel is using the issue “to evade responsibilities in the peace process and to sabotage the process,” he argued.

U.S. Ambassador Brooke D. Anderson, Washington’s Alternate Representative for Special Political Affairs, was critical of both Israel and the PA. While reiterating the Obama administration’s “disappointment” over continuation of new building for Jews in areas of Jerusalem claimed by the PA, he added, “We also urge President Abbas to resume negotiations.”

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US working on ‘compromise’ plan to renew freeze

ADL head Abe Foxman says there are “very serious efforts on the American and Israeli side to find the vehicle to go back to direct talks.”

The US is busy working on a “compromise proposal” that will allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to “come down from the tree” and re-enter direct talks, senior diplomatic officials said Monday.

Although the officials did not provide details of what was being discussed, one source said it entailed Israel renewing the settlement construction moratorium before the US midterm elections on November 2.

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Anti-Defamation League national director Abe Foxman, who met Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday, said there were “very serious efforts on the American and the Israeli side to find the vehicle to go back to direct talks.”

Foxman said his impression was that this vehicle would be found before the US elections.

There have recently been suggestions that in exchange for an extension of the settlement construction moratorium, the US would come out on the record against any Palestinian effort – now being discussed with increasing frequency – to get the US, the UN Security Council or the UN General Assembly to back a unilateral Palestinian declaration of a state along the pre-1967 lines.

So far, Washington, which has been very clear in its call to Israel to extend the settlement construction moratorium, has not been equally clear in opposing this type of unilateral Palestinian move, something that has caused concern in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, said in a Knesset meeting with the Likud faction that the settlement construction issue was an “artificial obstacle.”
“Even the Palestinians say that the construction is insignificant and barely has an effect on the final-status map. I say it has no impact at all,” he said.

Netanyahu said that he had watched a Channel 1 interview with Abbas on Sunday night, but that “I must say that I prefer to talk to him face-to-face.

This interview took place seven minutes from here. A direct conversation can advance the resolution of the conflict.”

Netanyahu told Likud MKs that if the Palestinians wanted to continue the conflict, “they can find a way. But if they want to solve it, I have ways of doing it. The security problems are real, so the solutions must be real, and not just on paper.”

Netanyahu said that several subjects must be discussed in the negotiations, including the recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, rockets being launched from Gaza, the settlements, Jerusalem and water.

“What matters is not the length of the talks, but whether the Palestinians want to solve the conflict. The Palestinians must decide if they want to solve problems. If there is willingness to solve the dispute, it will be solved, but if not, it won’t be,” he said.

“The Palestinians must compromise with the existence of Israel living in peace with its neighbors. This would be good for us and for them,” he said.

Netanyahu expressed concern that IAF aircraft flying near the Gaza Strip may be exposed to anti-aircraft systems.

“Today we are experiencing difficulty flying near the Gaza Strip since they [Palestinians] have in their possession antiaircraft missiles,” the prime minister said. “Imagine that there are no security arrangements [in an agreement with the PA], and there will be missiles that can take down a plane en route to Ben-Gurion Airport.”

In a related diplomatic development, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, the assistant secretary-general for political affairs at the UN, presented a periodic report to the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East and said “intensive diplomatic efforts led by the United States and supported by all members of the Quartet are ongoing to create conditions conducive to the continuation of the [direct] negotiations.”

But, he said, “These efforts were made even more difficult by the Israeli government’s approval on October 14 of construction tenders for 238 housing units in the settlements of Ramot and Pisgat Ze’ev in east Jerusalem, contrary to international law and running directly counter to the Quartet’s efforts.

“Time is of the essence and we need progress in the coming weeks,” he said.

“The secretary-general continues to believe that, if the door to peace closes, it will be very hard to reopen. There is no alternative to a negotiated settlement resulting in the creation of an independent and viable State of Palestine living side by side with the State of Israel in peace and security.”

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