Palestinian elements said that Israeli and Palestinian chief negotiators Saeb Erekat and Attorney Yitzhak Molcho are scheduled to meet in the next 48 hours in order to prepare the next meeting of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
JERUSALEM: Top Israeli and Palestinian officials headed on Sunday to the United States where they were expected to seek ways to break a deadlock over settlements which is threatening to sabotage peace talks. So far, Israel has stubbornly refused to extend the partial 10-month moratorium on new construction, which expires next Sunday. The Palestinians have vowed to abandon the talks if the building resumes. Last week, two days of trilateral talks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and Jerusalem, which brought together Abbas, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, failed to break the impasse. Hillary plea: With one week to go before Israel’s freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank expires, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton renewed on Sunday a US call for it to be extended Asked in an interview with ABC News if she thought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would decide to extend the 10-month moratorium beyond the September 26 deadline, Clinton said: “Well, that certainly is our hope.” “It’s been in effect for the time that it was set for, and the talks are just starting,” she said. “So we are working hard to make sure there remains a conducive atmosphere to constructive thought.”
Let me guess,.."Fark Hilary Clinton",.......right Larry.
Report: IDF killed women and children with white flags in Gaza
Following Hamas' harsh criticism, Human Rights Watch issues additional report on Operation Cast Lead that includes severe accusations against Israel: 11 civilians unconnected to fighting killed. IDF response: Sources used in report not proven to be credible
Ynet Latest Update: 08.13.09, 11:28 / Israel News share
More than six months after Israel's Gaza offensive, Operation Cast Lead, accusations are still being leveled against the IDF's combat ethic. Human Rights Watch published a report Thursday detailing testimonies of seven incidents in which Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip were shot by Israeli soldiers despite the fact that they were carrying white flags.
According to the report, 11 civilians, including five women and four children, were killed and another eight were injured in the said incidents. The IDF refused to cooperate with the rights' group's investigation and did not respond to questions the group submitted to it in writing.
The authors of the report visited the sites of the attacks.
On the other hand, his resolute demand for a total building stop threatens Netanyahu’s coalition. Settlers and hawks in Netanyahu’s own party have begun to talk of rebellion. Unrest is growing against “their” prime minister, who allegedly “stole” their vote by pledging allegiance to the settlements and now abides by dictates from Ramallah and Washington.
Enter the Americans: The only thing Netanyahu and Abbas seem to fear more than their homegrown opposition is the danger of running afoul U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration.
To both, Washington is a strategic partner, and they are thus keen to be regarded as the “good guy” and to cast the other as the spoiler of peace. That provides Clinton with leverage she wants to use to bridge the gap: “We need to establish an environment that is conducive to negotiations,” said Clinton, adding both she and Obama felt that “doing something about the moratorium” would be “an important decision by Israel . . . in the interest of the negotiations.”
According to Israeli sources, the U.S. wants Israel to halt construction for another three months, without declaring this freeze officially.
Palestinians could acquiesce to such a solution: “We care about actions, not declarations,” says Zumlot. Palestinians would remain at the table as long as they could see that the freeze continued, the PLO spokesperson says.
This could free the path to make headway on borders, while both leaders could tell their constituents that they did not budge. Once a border is delineated in principle, Israel could resume construction in areas destined to be annexed.
For the time being, all discussions remain highly confidential. But by Sept. 27 the world will learn whether a workable compromise was reached or whether the peace process was indeed, as radicals have stated, a stillborn project destined to fail.
For decades, Netanyahu had resisted the idea of an independent state of Palestine. Now pundits in Israel began to wonder whether the one-time hawk had followed his predecessors across the Rubicon to become Israel’s newest peacenik.
Not many years ago, merely discussing the possibility of dividing Jerusalem would have triggered a walkout of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners. Now they silently go along with discussions of “hard-core” issues that must have included the Palestinians’ right of return, borders, security and a division of Israel’s “eternal, undivided capital.”
Hawks may tolerate the talks since they believe that they are destined to fail anyway. Netanyahu’s foreign minister, the ultra-nationalist Avigdor Liebermann, opined that peace would not come for another generation.
His view was mirrored by the radical Islamic Hamas, who called the negotiations “still born.” Ahmad Jaabari, commander of Hamas’ armed wing in Gaza, even published a letter extolling the benefits of armed resistance to liberate “all of Palestine.”
The extremists may have a point. Official optimism notwithstanding, a seemingly unsolvable dilemma casts a long shadow on the talks. On Sept. 26, Israel’s “one-time only” settlement freeze will officially expire. For 10 months, no building starts were permitted in the approximately 150 settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Approximately 300,000 settlers eagerly await the end of the moratorium to build not only private homes, but also add direly needed classrooms and kindergartens to their ever expanding enterprise.
For Palestinians, these settlements are the main obstacle to peace, robbing their land and carving up what is left of their country while talks are dragging on indefinitely. They consistently and passionately threaten to bolt from negotiations should Netanyahu allow construction to pick up again.
Israel’s prime minister, whose power depends on the settlers and their sympathizers in his government, is just as adamant when he states that he cannot extend the moratorium, lest he forfeit his power.
All attempts to square this vicious circle have so far proven futile. Both sides engage in careful brinkmanship to placate their belligerent opposition at home. Hamas directs its vitriol at Abbas, portraying him as a traitor and collaborator who bows to U.S. and Israeli pressure and has no right to represent and “sell out” vital Palestinian interests.
Abbas’ isolation grew this week as Hamas managed to recruit 13 other Palestinian resistance groups to reject negotiations in unison. Faced with harsh criticism at home, Abbas cannot agree to an Israeli proposal to continue construction only in agreed settlement blocks that would be annexed to Israel in a peace deal anyway.
TEL AVIV—After a 20-month hiatus in negotiations, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas convened three times in two weeks And the question of whether Israel will extend its moratorium on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank overshadowed the talks. That freeze’s fate remains the central unsolved quandary of the renewed process.
Optimists were hard pressed to find good news. The best they could manage was that the talks had not broken down on the first day, as pessimists on both sides had predicted just hours before the first summit in Sharm al-Sheik, hosted by Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak.
Ominous signs had preceded the meeting between Netanyahu and Abbas under the aegis of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Cautiously avoiding details, U. S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell tried to sound upbeat. Progress was being made, and both leaders had begun “serious discussion on core issues,” Mitchell said. Spokesmen on both sides were eager to mirror Mitchell’s optimism. “The atmosphere is very good,” Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev said.
“There is a lot of momentum. Many serious players are involved in this process now,” echoed PLO spokesman Hussam Zumlot.
Heeding a stern warning from the U.S. to keep quiet, both sides refrained from divulging details about the contents of the talks. Thus it remains unclear which contentious core issues have been discussed or what has been achieved so far.
Nonetheless, there has significant progress in the past two weeks, especially in terms of symbolism. The right-wing prime minister, elected with the votes of Israel’s settlers, ordered the flying of the Palestinian flag at his official Jerusalem residence as he welcomed Abbas for the third round of talks, undoubtedly a painful concession.
ttom500: We still doing this dance and song? Ok....say N and A sign a peace treaty. Fatah and Israel can smile at each other. Maybe a across a wall or fence. But at least they are smiling at each other. What then?
Israel gains RESPECT and CREDABILITY from the rest of the peaceful nations in the world.
Iran continues to develope nuclear reactors for energy and defence just like Israel.
The Saudis' continue buying weapons from the US. Maybe they can start making some cabbage.?
War mongers like Moe And Larry will be out in the cold, particularly Moe. Because at 5'7 he still will be laughed at and thought of as a tart.
Mr. Netanyahu should relent on this issue, and pledge to an indefinite freeze on new settlement construction during the peace talks. Israel’s supporters have all sorts of perfectly valid arguments about why, in theory, the Israeli Prime Minister should have no obligation to make such a pledge. But negotiations aren’t conducted in theory. They’re conducted with other human beings — in this case, Palestinians whose entire political narrative is based on an obsessive fear of Jews taking land they regard as theirs. The ongoing construction of new settlements is the steel and wood embodiment of those fears.
It would not be a sign of appeasement or weakness on Mr. Netanyahu’s part to recognize that fact. Indeed, history would remember him kindly for his courage.
Jonathan Kay on the Middle East: September 16, 2010 – 2:07 pm
It is fashionable to dismiss the current round of Middle East peace negotiations as pointless diplomatic kabuki. But it’s not. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas — unlike his predecessor, Yasser Arafat — seems genuinely interested in transforming the West Bank into a normal, peaceable society. (Indeed, to a great extent, he already has.) And while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu routinely is described as “hawkish,” he is not delusional: He realizes that the only long-term solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem is a two-state solution; and that, until one is achieved, the spectacle of Palestinian suffering will strengthen the hand of unstable regional warmongers, from Beirut to Damascus to Tehran. Moreover, both sides have learned from past diplomatic failures, and have avoided the mistake of pushing divisive issues off into the future. They have elected instead to tackle the most difficult negotiations — over borders, refugees, settlements and the status of Jerusalem — before announcing interim agreements. This week, U.S. envoy George Mitchell declared that these peace talks are more productive and serious, in their early stages at least, than those he brokered in Northern Ireland.
Critics who say that Mr. Abbas is not serious about peace should re-read Khaled Abu Toameh’s column, which appeared in Thursday’s National Post. As Mr. Toameh argued, the mere fact that the PA President is sitting down to talk with the Israelis means he has a bullseye on his head — the mark carried by every Arab “traitor” who commits the crime of negotiating with Zionists. Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who traded land for peace, could attest to that — if he hadn’t been killed by Islamists.
The position I've held is there should be a fair and equitable settlement of issues. Borders, Security, Water, Rights of return or fair compensation, Jeruselem. There is no chance of this. Netanyahu isn't going to budge one iota on any of these issues. It's going to leave a bad taste in every Palestinians mouth for a long long time.
I'm no more a lawyer than you. But you and I know what is "war" and what is occupation.
After the American Civil War did Lincoln create "security zones" and annex lands of the defeated Confederacy?
After World War II did Eisenhower annex land or create "security zones?
The Jews and Palestinians have all had their rightful areas of Palestine/Israel. These are what the "debate" is over.
Jeruselem should be an international mecca of worship. No more. No less. If both sides want to claim a portion for their administrative "capital" what in hell is wrong with that?
The harder Israel makes it for the Palestinians the harder history will view her. The oppressed, the oppressor.
Local media reports had said that during the meeting with Netanyahu President Abbas focused on the issue of the borders of the future independent Palestinian state that will be established on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967.
Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran negotiator and member of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) told Palestinian Radio that the question of the Palestinian state's borders "is an essential and substantial issue," adding "Netanyahu has been trying to escape from the issue and only focus on the issue of security."
"The major issues such as borders, settlement, Jerusalem, refugees and security are all one package to reach a permanent peace solution that ends the conflict," said Ashrawi, adding "the issue of borders should be immediately negotiated in order to prevent Israel from a unilateral drawing of the borders."
She also reiterated that it is impossible to overcome the issue of settlement "because it is the issue that substantially contradicts with the principles and goals of the negotiations process," adding "if Israel wants to show a goodwill gesture, it should stop settlement and negotiate the other substantial issues. "
Meanwhile, another well-informed Palestinian source, also spoke on condition of anonymity, affirmed that there is a big U.S. pressure on both Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a package including an Israeli decision to extend the moratorium of freezing settlement construction.
The source told Xinhua that Clinton and U.S. peace envoy George Mitchell are exerting efforts and putting pressures on the two sides to overcome the crisis of settlement. The source added that the U.S. is trying to reach middle-ground solutions to go ahead with the basic issues in the negotiations.
Israel and the Palestinians held two rounds of direct peace talks within the last couple of days in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and in Jerusalem.
GAZA, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- The issue of resuming the Israeli settlement construction in the Palestinian territories is looming over the U.S.-sponsored direct peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians launched in Washington early this month, officials said.
Ghassan al-Kharib, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) government's spokesman told "Voice of Palestine" Radio that the Palestinian people and their leadership's judgment is based on Israel's practice in reality, mainly in the issue of settlement construction in the Palestinian territories.
"In fact there is a wide gap between the words and the deeds of Israel. Israeli officials make statements to the media only for propaganda saying it wants the choice of peace, while on the ground it insists to continue settlement," said al-Khatib, adding "settlement and negotiations are contradicted."
He went on saying that the negotiations aim at ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories while settlement devotes and manifests this occupation, adding "we hope that the will of peace succeeds and overcomes the will of occupation and we hope that the world's pressure on Israel continues."
Meanwhile, well-informed Palestinian sources close to the negotiations revealed that Wednesday's meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu at the latter's house in Jerusalem "was so difficult."
The sources, which spoke in condition of anonymity, said the difficulties stemmed out from the stubbornness that Netanyahu had expressed in relation to the issue on extending the ten-month Israeli moratorium of freezing settlement construction. The moratorium ends on Sept. 26.
"Netanyahu hasn't changed his mind concerning the extension of the freeze and kept focusing on the Israeli strict principles of security," said the sources, adding that he informed Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Israel is not intending to extend the moratorium.
However, Palestinian officials quoted Abbas as saying that he rebuffed Netanyahu's position and threatened to withdraw from the negotiations in response to the Israeli right-wing leader. The officials added that the meeting was about to collapse until the Americans intervened to rescue it
Gets back to my original post. In all honesty if Hamas continues with the rocketry, I say invade them and imprison each and every one of them. I know Israel won't do that because then there wouldn't be any twisted justification for the land grab.
As I also said, if there is no "just and honorable peace" there will be more death.
SilverBirch Forum Posts (3,158)
United Nations Peace Keepers in Gaza
Palestinian elements said that Israeli and Palestinian chief negotiators Saeb Erekat and Attorney Yitzhak Molcho are scheduled to meet in the next 48 hours in order to prepare the next meeting of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.