Pope will visit Mideast May 8-15 Thu Mar 26, 11:20 am ET
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican has set May 8-15 for Pope Benedict XVI's long-awaited first visit to the Holy Land, with stops in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.Details of the trip were previously released but the Vatican announcement Thursday was the first confirmation of the dates and all the stops.Among the highlights are a visit to a mosque in Jordan, stops at the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock — key Jewish and Muslim shrines — and a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem. He will also celebrate Mass in Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Christ.His visit is expected to help ease sometimes strained relations between Israel and the Vatican and between the Vatican and Muslims.His visit will be similar to Pope John Paul II's groundbreaking 2000 pilgrimage, the first official visit by a pope to the Jewish state.It begins in Amman, Jordan, where Benedict is scheduled to visit the Hussein bin Talal mosque. In 2006, Benedict prayed at Turkey's famed Blue Mosque.During his three-day stay in Jordan, Benedict will also visit biblical sites including Mount Nebo, where Moses is said to have first seen the promised land.Doubts had been raised about the visit by the German-born pope because of several controversies.Jewish groups were angered when Benedict lifted the excommunication of an ultraconservative bishop who is a Holocaust denier. Benedict condemned the bishop's stance and spoke out against anti-Semitism.World War II Pope Pius XII is also a figure of controversy. Some historians say he did not do everything in his power to stop the Holocaust, while the Vatican defends his actions and is considering him for possible beatification.Benedict will visit Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. He will also meet with Israel and Palestinian leaders and visit Nazareth, the town where Jesus lived as a boy.
Israel's Olmert cleared in real estate deal By IAN DEITCH, Associated Press Writer – Thu Mar 26, 10:33 am ET
JERUSALEM – Israeli police on Thursday said they had dropped a criminal investigation into a real estate deal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, just days before he leaves office, citing lack of sufficient evidence.Four other cases against Olmert are still pending.In the real estate inquiry police investigated allegations that Olmert bought a home in an exclusive Jerusalem neighborhood at a steep discount in exchange for granting favors to the builder. The alleged deal occurred while Olmert was Jerusalem mayor, years before he became prime minister in 2006.Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the case was closed on Thursday after an investigation showed no concrete evidence of illegal acts in this case.Olmert paid $325,000 less than market value for the property, leading to suspicions of fraud and bribery.A series of corruption investigations led Olmert to announce his resignation last September. Following national elections, he is set to step down next week.Earlier this month Attorney General Meni Mazuz said he was considering putting Olmert on trial over a separate case alleging that he unlawfully accepted cash-stuffed envelopes from a Jewish-American businessman.Police also wound up an investigation into suspicions that during his 2003-2006 term as trade and industry minister Olmert used his position to channel development grants to a company run by his attorney. Police called it a deep conflict of interest and recommended that the state prosecutor's office bring charges.
In late November, Mazuz notified Olmert that he would indict him in a different case, where he allegedly double-billed Jewish groups for trips abroad, then pocketed the difference or financed trips for relatives.Olmert is also being investigated in connection with allegedly corrupt political appointments.All the investigations predate his becoming prime minister in Jan. 2006, and he has denied wrongdoing in each case.Allegations of corruption have swirled around Olmert throughout his three-decade political career, but he has never been convicted of a crime.
The New Israel: Still No Easy Task for Obama By TONY KARON – Thu Mar 26, 8:00 am ET
Unsustainable.That was President Barack Obama's blunt assessment on Tuesday night of the current state of affairs between Israel and the Palestinians. Acknowledging the obstacles in his path given the political changes on both sides, the President pledged to follow a philosophy of persistence in pursuit of a two-state solution, citing Northern Ireland's once unthinkable rapprochement as his inspiration. It may, however, take more than persistent cajoling to bridge a gulf that is widening rather than narrowing.Israel's leaders on Tuesday night concluded a political deal that will put the hawkish Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu in power, with the centrist Labor Party of Ehud Barak and the far-right Yisrael Beitenu Party of Avigdor Lieberman as his main partners. Barak narrowly won his party's endorsement to join a government whose leader is not committed to a two-state solution, and whose Foreign Minister–designate, Lieberman, expresses harshly anti-Arab views. The Labor leader insisted that the presence of his party would put a brake on the more belligerent instincts of some of the government's coalition partners. But even if that proves to be true, there is still a recipe for paralysis on the question of peace with the Palestinians. Barak may be able to talk Netanyahu out of certain actions in respect to expanding the settlements that are most likely to antagonize Washington, but Netanyahu is unlikely to be persuaded to move in any meaningful way to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank. So, Netanyahu's comment that a unity government will bring stability to Israel may mean that it will simply stabilize the deadlock. (See pictures of Israel's Gaza offensive.)
While anxious observers in Washington and elsewhere have decried Netanyahu's victory as a setback for the prospect of a two-state solution, it's worth remembering that progress on that front had been scant even under the outgoing centrist Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, who is now the leader of the Kadima opposition. And the Bush Administration, rather than press for the implementation of a peace deal, had confined itself to staging talks between Olmert's government and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas in search of what was termed a shelf agreement - a detailed draft of a two-state peace plan that could serve as a kind of eyes-on-the-prize political horizon to be implemented at a more favorable moment. But even that proved elusive, as Olmert's government, certainly more centrist than the incoming one, could not agree with the moderate Abbas leadership on where to draw the borders between Israel and a Palestinian state, the fate of Jerusalem and that of Palestinian refugees, and other key questions. It's not only on the Israeli side that positions have hardened since then. Abbas' popularity has declined steadily to the point where few believe he could win a Palestinian election that must be held sometime within next year. Abbas is involved in talks to create a unity government with Hamas, which remains the ruling party in his legislature (it is unable to meet because of the number of lawmakers in Israeli detention). Abbas' influence is declining even within his own Fatah movement, many of whose members believe he achieved nothing for the Palestinians in his decade of patient negotiations under Washington's tutelage. His aides say he won't negotiate with Netanyahu unless the Likud leader embraces a two-state solution.
While Netanyahu will put on his friendliest face for Washington's benefit - I will negotiate with the PA for peace, he told an Israeli business conference on Wednesday - his idea of peace has largely focused on building up the Palestinian economy and institutions of self-government in the various enclaves of the West Bank that are controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu has stressed his belief that Israel's security needs are incompatible with sovereign independence for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. And he has made clear that he will not deal with a government that includes Hamas, and expects Washington to do the same. Indeed, his goal remains toppling the Hamas government in Gaza. But Abbas is seeking a unity agreement with that same group, which is likely to eclipse the Palestinian President at the polls the next time Palestinians are allowed to vote - that is, if Abbas remains Fatah's candidate. He could even lose a primary challenge to a more Hamas-friendly leader like the imprisoned Marwan Barghouti. Prospects for advancing by consensus to a two-state solution on the basis of the current political alignments are hard to see. Indeed, Netanyahu, in dealing with Washington, will emphasize reversing Iran's nuclear development, rather than making peace with the Palestinians, as his top concern. And in that position he has the unanimous backing of most of Israel's political spectrum.The problem is that the Palestinians are likely to make sure they're higher on Israel's - and Washington's - agenda. As things stand, there is no cease-fire agreement in Gaza, where Palestinians are chafing under an ongoing economic siege that prevents reconstruction. Meanwhile, Israel and Hamas have failed to agree on a prisoner exchange to secure the release of captured Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit. There are growing signs that the population of the Fatah-controlled West Bank may be beginning to stir in renewed rebellion against Israel's security wall, checkpoints and expanding settlements. And Israel's moves to consolidate its grip on East Jerusalem, its planned settlement activity in the West Bank and this week's unrest in the Israeli-Arab town of Umm al-Fahm all suggest the region remains a tinder box. By this summer, the challenge facing Washington may be less about a long-term peace than on putting out the fires of an immediate upsurge in violence on any or all of those fronts. The status quo is, indeed, unsustainable, but you wouldn't want to bet against it getting worse.
Israeli army denies charges over phosphorous use Thu Mar 26, 7:20 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli army denied on Thursday charges by a human rights group that its bombardment of heavily populated areas of Gaza with white phosphorous munitions violated international law and could constitute a war crime.Based on the findings (of an internal investigation) at this stage, it is already possible to conclude that the IDF's (Israel Defence Forces) use of smoke shells was in accordance with international law,it said in a statement.These shells were used for specific operational needs only and in accord with international humanitarian law. The claim that smoke shells were used indiscriminately, or to threaten the civilian population, is baseless,the army said.New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released on Wednesday that the army during its 22-day in Gaza in December-January repeatedly exploded white phosphorous munitions in the air over populated areas, killing and injuring civilians and damaging civilian structures, including a school, a market, a humanitarian aid warehouse and a hospital.The (military's) repeated firing of air-burst white phosphorous shells from 155mm artillery into densely populated areas was indiscriminate and indicates the commission of war crimes,it said.
International law allows the use of white phosphorous, which ignites upon contact with oxygen and burns at extremely high temperatures, to be used on open battlefields to create a smoke screen to obscure troop movements.But the weapon's use is prohibited in densely populated areas, where it can light fires that are virtually impossible to extinguish and inflict severe burn wounds.The Israeli military didn't just use white phosphorous in open areas as a screen for its troops, Fred Abrahams, a co-author of the HRW report said.It fired white phosphorous repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren't in the area and safer smoke shells were available. As a result civilians needlessly suffered and died.In its statement, the army said that contrary to the claims in the report, smoke shells are not an incendiary weapon.The third protocol of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons -- which defines particular limitations on incendiary weapons -- makes it clear that weapons intended for screening are not classed as incendiary weapons.The state of Israel is not a signatory of the third protocol, however, in any, case, as noted this protocol does not ban the use of smoke shells for the purpose of screening.
Israel launched a war on Gaza's Hamas rulers on December 27 in retaliation for consistent rocket fire from the territory. The 22-day offensive killed more than 1,300Palestinians and 13 Israelis. It ended on January 18 with mutual ceasefires called by Hamas and Israel.
Netanyahu vows to pursue peace talks by Yana Dlugy – Thu Mar 26, 5:21 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday to pursue peace talks with the Palestinians as he prepared to present his new government to parliament next week.Peace... is a common and enduring goal for all Israelis and Israeli governments, mine included. This means I will negotiate with the Palestinian Authority for peace,the hawkish Netanyahu told a Jerusalem conference.
Washington has warned that peacemaking will not be any easier under Netanyahu -- who will head a right-leaning government and opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
I think that the Palestinians should understand that they have in our government a partner for peace, for security, for the rapid development of the Palestinian economy,he said.Netanyahu has succeeded in pulling together a government six weeks after Israel's election, following Tuesday's agreement by the centre-left Labour party to join his coalition.I intend to present the Knesset with the national unity government next week,he said at a meeting of his Likud party's parliamentary faction.
A senior Likud official said the swearing-in should take place on Monday or Tuesday.
His right-wing Likud was due to sign a fourth coalition agreement with the three-member far-right faction Jewish Home on Wednesday, a senior MP said, giving him a majority of 69 MPs in the 120-seats Knesset or parliament.The Likud leader, who was premier between 1996 and 1999, opposes the creation of a Palestinian state for the moment, saying economic conditions in the occupied West Bank must first be improved.
Peace talks were revived to great fanfare in November 2007 but made little visible progress and finally ground to a halt during Israel's three-week war on Gaza in December and January.Building peace needs actions and not words, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.Any Israeli government that freezes settlement construction and accepts a settlement based on a two-state solution and to negotiate on all final status issues, including Jerusalem, will be considered a partner for peace,he said, listing issues opposed by several members of Netanyahu's cabinet.US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that peace efforts with a Netanyahu-led government were not any easier but that they were just as necessary.It is critical for us to advance a two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in their own states with peace and security,Obama told a press conference. The status quo is unsustainable.Obama was asked about prospects for peace with a Netanyahu cabinet, whose chosen foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has been dubbed a racist by critics because of repeated diatribes against Israeli Arabs.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's spokesman said Abbas's comments showed the new US administration is serious about the peace process.Labour voted to join Netanyahu's cabinet despite the opposition of many in the veteran party that launched the Oslo peace talks in the early 1990s.Netanyahu's coalition comprises 27 MPs from Likud, 15 from Lieberman's ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu, 11 from ultra-Orthodox Shas, 13 from Labour and three from Jewish Home. In their coalition agreement, Netanyahu and Labour leader Ehud Barak remained vague on the issue, saying the cabinet will work to reach a comprehensive regional peace agreement and respect previous international agreements Israel has signed. But the deal did not address the issue of a Palestinian state -- the creation of which is at the heart of the international roadmap to peace that has made little progress since its launch by major world powers in 2003. And discord between the partners emerged on Wednesday, with Labour MPs saying peace talks will be continued while Likud MPs said the party would not accept the idea of creating a Palestinian state. Despite his hardline rhetoric, Netanyahu signed several deals with the Palestinians during his first stint as premier. But he also authorised a major expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, one of the thorniest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Army radio said that as part of his coalition deal with Yisrael Beitenu, Netanyahu pledged to expand settlements in a highly contentious area just outside annexed Arab east Jerusalem.
Syria leader explains failure of talks with Israel By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer – Wed Mar 25, 1:47 pm ET
BEIRUT – Syria's president said indirect peace talks with Israel failed last year because the Jewish state would not make an unambiguous commitment to return all the territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war, according to an interview published Wednesday.The comments to the Lebanese daily As-Safir were Bashar Assad's first on why the Turkish-mediated negotiations collapsed. Previously, Syrian officials said they suspended the talks in protest against Israel's war in Gaza, which began in late December.However Assad outlined another major point of contention. He suggested Syria insisted on the complete return of the strategic Golan Heights, while Israel wanted to keep some disputed land around the Sea of Galilee, its main water source.Assad said Syria had specified some points of land on the Galilee shores and the Jordan River he wanted returned.We asked the Israelis to prove their seriousness on these points and of course they agreed in principle, Assad said. But when it came to drafting, they wanted to draft it in a way that is somehow ambiguous and obscure,he added.We said no. We do not discuss. These points are either approved or not. ... The discussions ended at this point and the talks failed,Assad said. The president's office confirmed to The Associated Press that the As-Safir report was accurate.
Syria and Israel held direct talks in the late 1990s and early 2000. They also broke down over the extent of a withdrawal from the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau captured from Syria in 1967. Israel sought lines closer to the 1923 colonial border and insisted on retaining sovereignty over the strip of land also claimed by Syria along the Galilee shores.The late Syrian President Hafez Assad, the current president's father, also insisted on the return of all the Golan, including the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. At a meeting with then-U.S. President Bill Clinton in Geneva in March 2000, the elder Assad spoke nostalgically of his own visits to the sea.I would swim in the Sea of Galilee, I would have barbecues there, I ate fish,he told Clinton.Israelis have argued in the past that a 21-square-mile area along the sea was originally Palestinian, not Syrian, and therefore need not be returned to Syria with the rest of the Golan.Bashar Assad was also asked in the interview what concessions Israel wanted for peace with Syria.No Iran, no Hezbollah and no Hamas, he said, referring to Syrian alliances with Tehran and the Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups. He did not say how he responded to those demands.The two Mideast foes held four rounds of indirect talks mediated by Turkey last year.
Recounting how the contacts came about, Assad he agreed to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's overtures after we reached a point when Olmert was ready to fully return the Golan Heights.Olmert's office did not immediately comment on the interview. Government spokesman Mark Regev said the basis of the talks with the Syrians was a formula that we know exactly what the Syrians expect from negotiations and they know exactly what we expect.No progress was achieved with the Turkish mediation unfortunately,Regev said.Associated Press Writer Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Labor Joins Netanyahu's Likud in Israel's Unlikely New Government By TIM MCGIRK / TEL AVIV – Wed Mar 25, 11:55 am ET
In a stormy meeting of Israel's Labor party on Tuesday night, Ehud Barak dragged his party into joining a rightwing coalition government led by Likud's Benyamin Netanyahu. With Labor on board, Netanyahu's coalition, stitched together with an array of ultra-orthodox and nationalist parties, now has a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. The hawkish Likud leader is likely to be sworn in as prime minister on Tuesday, ushering out his disgraced predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who faces possible charges of corruption. Having Barak, currently defense minister, at his side will give Netanyahu a veneer of international respectability. The Obama Administration and European capitals are horrified that the other members of Netanyahu's coalition oppose the idea of Palestinian statehood. (See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East.) Convincing Laborites to join ranks with their longtime ideological rivals on the right was a tough sell for Barak. During his speech at the party convention in Tel Aviv, Barak's voice sounded squeaky and defensive. He called for national responsibility, but this was dismissed by booing younger cadres as rank opportunism - Barak wanting to hanging onto his berth as defense minister at the expense of his party's ideals and character. As Labor party secretary Eitan Cabel told TIME: The ambitions of Barak are killing the Labor party, and I told him that.Labor was the party of Israel's socialist founders, and at the convention there were glimpses of the old stalwarts: sun-creased kibbutzniks, leather-capped union men, teachers and a few men and women of dogged ideals. But they were outnumbered by party apparatchiks, with their cologne and insipid handshakes, few of whom appeared ready to give up their cushy government posts and influence. Says Shelly Yachimovich, a hard-hitting, ex-radio journalist who is now one of Labor's rising stars, A strong motive was clinging to power and the good life. Some Labor people believe their genetic code cannot survive outside the government.Labor's younger cadres squawked like slaughtered chickens,according to Haaretz columnist Yossi Sarid. In the end, though, Barak got his mandate to join Netanyahu, with 680 delegate votes to 507. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)
Had he lost the vote, Barak, the diminutive ex-general and decorated war hero, would likely have been driven out as party leader, his political career at an end. This way Barak stays in power and Labor will get the ministries of defense, agriculture, industry, trade, and welfare. But the cost has been high. One respected columnist, Ben Caspit in Ma'ariv, wrote: The Labor Party signed its own death certificate.The younger cadres, the so-called rebels who opposed the marriage with Likud, say they won't split the party for now. But they may choose to vote against Netanyahu, and their own party chief Barak, on key issues. (See pictures of Israeli soldiers in Gaza.)Netanyahu has finally pieced together a majority of at least 66 Knesset seats. But there are no guarantees that his coalition will last its four-year term. Members of his own Likud party are grumbling that Netanyahu has given away too many ministerial portfolios to woo both Labor and the hard-right party Yisrael Beitenu of Avigdor Lieberman, who is likely to become the next Israeli foreign minister, despite his extreme anti-Arab views. (See a TIME video on Lieberman.)On the upside, with Barak as his ally, Netanyahu has a strong defense minister to stand up to the Iranian nuclear threat and to Hamas militants ruling Gaza. Barak also says that while Netanyahu is against a two-state solution with the Palestinians, Barak has persuaded him to make key concessions that will please Washington: ending the building of illegal Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, and a promise that the hawkish Netanyahu will abide by the U.S-sponsored peace accords Israel signed with the Palestinians. On Wednesday, with Barak's support in mind, Netanyahu toned down his usual hawkishness, telling Israeli and Arab businessmen, I'm a partner for peace. Next week, Israelis will have a new Prime Minister and cabinet, and a season or two of political stability. But Barak's opportunism may have set the historic Labor party on a slide into irrelevance. - With reporting by Aaron J. Klein / Tel Aviv.
Rights group says Hamas beat man to death Wed Mar 25, 11:20 am ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – A Gaza-based human rights group is calling on Hamas to investigate the beating death of a Palestinian man in the militant group's custody.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights says Jamil Assaf died Wednesday after he was beaten to death by security forces belonging to Hamas, the Islamic group ruling Gaza.
The rights group says a forensic report shows he was harshly beaten and died of kidney failure.Assaf's family says their son was arrested in early March.The group said Assaf is the fifth to die in detention since Hamas overran Gaza in June 2007. During the same period, al-Haq, another Palestinian rights group, says four people have died in custody in the West Bank, which is ruled by Hamas rival Fatah of President Mahmoud Abbas.
Netanyahu plans to expand settlement Wed Mar 25, 7:58 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has struck a secret deal with one of his coalition partners, pledging to expand settlements in a highly-contentious area of the West Bank, army radio said on Wednesday.The agreement is not included in the official coalition deal between Netanyahu's right-wing Likud and the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party of firebrand Avigdor Lieberman but the two men struck the understanding during their coalition talks, the radio said.
According to the plan, some 3,000 housing units are to be constructed in the so-called E1 Sector in the occupied West Bank which runs between annexed east Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement.There was no immediate comment on the report from either party.Israel had pledged to freeze the E1 project as part of its commitments under the international roadmap for peace which was launched in 2005 but has made little progress since then.Palestinians bitterly oppose the project as it effectively cuts the occupied West Bank in two, making the creation of a viable Palestinian state highly problematic.
Obama cites complexities of Mideast peace effort By ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writer – Tue Mar 24, 10:22 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The emergence of an Israeli government led by a strong skeptic of peace negotiations with the Palestinians makes it no less necessary for the U.S. to push for a resolution of the generations-old conflict, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.
In his most direct public comments on the evolving makeup of the Israeli government, following inconclusive national elections in February, Obama told a White House news conference that he remains committed to pushing for a two-state solution: separate Israeli and Palestinian states existing side-by-side in peace.When a reporter asked how realistic it is to hope that such a solution can be achieved, given the political shifts in Israel, the president replied, It's not easier than it was, but I think it's just as necessary.It was the only foreign policy issue raised in the nearly hour-long news conference. Remarkably, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were never raised and no one mentioned Pakistan, which is at the center of U.S. efforts against al-Qaida terrorism. Obama is expected to unveil on Friday a new strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan, in a campaign linked to combatting Islamic extremism in neighboring Pakistan.In response to the question about Israel, Obama noted that there is uncertainty not only about the makeup of a new Israeli government but also of Israel's negotiating partner, the Palestinian Authority, which is badly divided. On March 7, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad submitted his resignation in a move meant to enable the early formation of a new caretaker government to oversee new elections.The designated Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been given until April 3 to form a governing coalition.We don't yet know what the Israeli government is going to look like, Obama said. And we don't yet know what the future shape of Palestinian leadership is going to be comprised of. What we do know is this: that the status quo is unsustainable, that it is critical for us to advance a two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can live side-by-side in their own states with peace and security.
On Tuesday, Israel's Labor Party voted to join the incoming Netanyahu government, lending a moderate voice to a coalition dominated by hard-liners and easing concerns of a head-on confrontation with Washington over Mideast peacemaking.Obama mentioned that he had appointed former Sen. George Mitchell as his special envoy for Mideast peace talks and that this demonstrated the administration's determination to press ahead regardless of the obstacles. Mitchell is expected to return to the region in a further effort to get peace talks under way shortly after the Israeli government is fully in place in April.How effective these negotiations may be, I think we're going to have to wait and see,Obama said.The past year of U.S.-backed talks, prior to Obama taking office in January, produced no discernible results, because the leadership of both sides appeared too weak to make the necessary concessions on vital issues like borders, refugees and settlements.
