Premier: Israel to keep parts of West Bank forever By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer – Sun Jan 24, 4:33 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel's leader declared his country's permanent claim to parts of the West Bank on Sunday, angering Palestinians again and complicating efforts by President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy — though the same claim was also made by previous, more moderate premiers.Timing and context lent weight to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to two Jewish settlements and his declaration that they would remain in Israel forever. He planted a tree at one of them — Maaleh Adumim, home to about 30,000 Israelis about two miles (three kilometers) from Jerusalem — a symbolic act of ownership.Our message is clear: We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here. This place will be an inseparable part of the state of Israel for eternity, Netanyahu proclaimed, just as envoy George Mitchell was trying to restart peace talks after a yearlong stalemate.In his claim, Netanyahu was referring to what Israel calls its main settlement blocs, most of them close to Israeli population centers. Israel has long said it would keep the blocs, where about 80 percent of its 300,000 settlers live, and trade Israeli land to the Palestinians in exchange for the blocs.In failed negotiations with former, relatively moderate Israeli premiers like Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, Palestinians have indicated they might accept such a trade.
But Netanyahu is suspect in Palestinian eyes, since he has traditionally opposed ceding control of any of the West Bank and has backed settlement expansion. Only under heavy U.S. pressure did he express grudging acceptance of the idea of a Palestinian state in a speech last June.Netanyahu responded to Palestinian demands for a total construction freeze in the settlements by limiting new building in the West Bank but not in east Jerusalem, claimed by the Palestinians as their capital.
Palestinians rejected the partial freeze as insufficient to get them back to the negotiating table.Israel countered that by demanding a total freeze in construction in the settlements and east Jerusalem's large Jewish neighborhoods — also considered settlements by the Palestinians — they have climbed out on a limb and are trapped by their own conditions.On Sunday, claiming Maaleh Adumim and the Gush Etzion bloc south of Jerusalem, Netanyahu once again provided fuel for Palestinian outrage.This is an unacceptable act that destroys all the efforts being exerted by Senator Mitchell in order to bring the parties back to the negotiating table, said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.This came as Mitchell was conducting his latest round of talks in the region to try to get peace talks back on track.In Amman, Jordan, Mitchell appeared unmoved by Netanyahu's declaration on Maaleh Adumim, restating the U.S. goal of a Palestinian state living next to Israel in peace.We intend to continue to pursue our efforts until that objective is achieved,he said after meeting Abbas and Jordanian King Abdullah II.On the eve of Mitchell's arrival last week, Netanyahu said Israel would demand a presence on the Jordanian border of the West Bank to stop weapons and rocket smuggling even if a peace deal is reached, in order to protect Israel's heartland from militant attacks like those from Gaza.Palestinians rejected that as well. They want a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem and say they will not accept any Israeli presence there — soldiers or settlers.After his meeting with Mitchell, Netanyahu told his Cabinet he had heard a few interesting ideas on renewing peace talks. No details were forthcoming.Even Mitchell's boss, Obama, has been sounding pessimistic about the prospects.Last year, Obama took office with the ambitious aim of putting Mideast peacemaking on a fast track. Instead, the peace mission has stalled over Israel's settlements on occupied lands and the refusal by the Palestinians to return to peace talks.
Obama acknowledged in an interview published last week that he underestimated the domestic political forces at play in the region and overreached in expecting a quick breakthrough. Also Sunday, a Belgian official protested after Israel prevented him from visiting Gaza. Development Minister Charles Michel said European officials must be able to visit the territory because they have aid projects there. This situation is unacceptable,he told RTL TV. Israel routinely bans foreign officials from crossing into Gaza, maintaining that such visits bolster the Islamic Hamas rulers of Gaza. Officials can enter Gaza from Egypt. Associated Press Writer Jamal Halaby contributed to this report from Amman, Jordan.
US envoy in peace shuttle between Israelis, Palestinians by Ahmad Khatib – Sun Jan 24, 12:46 pm ET
AMMAN (AFP) – US Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Sunday shuttled between Jerusalem and Amman in his second attempt this week to persuade Israeli and Palestinian leaders to relaunch peace talks.Mitchell met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem before heading to Amman to see Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as part of a tour aimed at reviving talks suspended during the Gaza war more than a year ago.President (Barack) Obama, Secretary of State (Hillary) Clinton and the United States are fully committed to comprehensive peace in the Middle East... Mitchell said after meeting Abbas in joint remarks to reporters with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat.The two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which includes the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state... we believe it's the only realistic solution to the conflict.He said that such a solution also includes agreements between Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon and full normalisation of relations among all countries in the region.
Mitchell said Washington would pursue our efforts until that objective is achieved.
Erakat said the Palestinians have not set preconditions for a resumption of talks.We don't have any conditions to resume negotiations. It's time for Israel to drop its conditions,he said.If Israel thinks that by finger-pointing at us and blaming us (the conflict) can be solved, it won't be solved.What really obstructs the efforts by Senator Mitchell and President Obama is Israel and its settlements, incursions and assassinations. When we say Israel should stop building settlements, it's not a Palestinian condition. It's an Israeli commitment that should be respected, Erakat said.We want a credible peace and we will continue to do our best and cooperate with the United States, but Israel should respect its commitments.Earlier in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said after meeting Mitchell that the envoy had presented new ideas about how to relaunch the peace process, without elaborating.I expressed my hope that these new ideas will lead to the renewal of the peace process if the Palestinians themselves show similar interest,he added.The United States has been trying for months to convince both sides to return to the negotiating table, but the Palestinians have refused to do so unless Israel halts all settlement growth in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories it occupied in 1967.Washington initially backed that demand but has more recently pressed both sides to return to the talks immediately and praised a limited 10-month settlement slowdown enacted by Netanyahu in November.The Palestinians have rejected the moratorium on building starts because it excludes mostly Arab east Jerusalem -- which they demand as their capital -- as well as public buildings and projects already under way.After meeting Mitchell, Netanyahu attended a symbolic tree planting ceremony at Gush Etzion, a major West Bank settlement bloc that Israel plans to keep in any future peace deal.Our message is clear. We are planting trees here, we will remain here, we will build here. This place will remain part of Israel for ever. There is a national consensus on this issue," his office quoted him as saying.
Israel has insisted it will not give any more ground and has blamed the Palestinians for the impasse. Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said on Sunday it was time to say clearly and unequivocally that there will be no further concessions from Israel for the launching of negotiations.The method of the Palestinians is to refuse to resume negotiations to force the United States to exert pressure on Israel, he told public radio. The ball is in the Palestinian court.Mitchell held a first round of talks with Netanyahu on Thursday and met Abbas on Friday. Last week he also visited Lebanon and Syria. Later on Sunday he flew to Cairo for a two-day visit during which he would meet officials, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported without elaborating.
Egypt's Mubarak defends Gaza border barrier
Sun Jan 24, 12:15 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday defended the construction of an underground barrier on the border with the Gaza Strip as a matter of national security and sovereignty.The works and reinforcements on our eastern border are a matter of Egyptian sovereignty. We do not accept a debate on the issue with anyone, Mubarak said in a speech to mark Police Day.It is the right of the Egyptian state, and even its duty, its responsibility. It is the right of every state to control and protect its borders,he added.Khaled Meshaal, exiled leader of the Palestinian Hamas movement which has controlled Gaza since June 2007, recently called on Egypt to halt construction of the barrier.What we do not accept, and will not accept, is that we take our borders lightly, or that our territory is violated or that our soliders or installations are targetted, Mubarak said.We continue with the construction and reinforcements on our border, not to please anyone, but to protect our national security from violations and from terrorist acts such as those in Taba, Sharm el-Sheikh, Dahab and Cairo,he added.A series of bombings from 2004 to 2006 killed a total of 130 people in Red Sea resorts on the Sinai peninsula and a 2009 bomb attack at a Cairo bazaar killed a French teenager.Egyptian authorities started building the underground steel barrier in a bid they say to stop the smuggling of goods and weapons into the Gaza Strip via a network of underground tunnels, but officials have remained tightlipped about the details of the construction work.Egypt has also been more vocal in its pressure on Hamas, which it accuses of refusing a reconciliation agreement with the Palestinian Authority.Israel has sealed the Gaza Strip off to all but very limited supplies of basic goods ever since the Islamist group seized control in 2007, ousting forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.On January 6, an Egyptian policeman was killed and five people wounded during clashes on the Egypt-Gaza border after Palestinian demonstrations to protest at the construction of the barrier.
Israel to rebut Gaza war report By Dan Williams – Sun Jan 24, 9:07 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel has prepared a rebuttal to a U.N. report censuring its conduct in the Gaza war, Israeli officials said on Sunday, arguing the United Nations' findings were so unfair as to have fueled a global wave of anti-Semitism.
Issued in September by a panel under South African jurist Richard Goldstone, the non-binding report cited evidence Israel had unlawfully targeted Palestinian civilians and gave it six months to investigate -- or risk prosecution in foreign courts.
Israel had boycotted the panel and brushed off its findings, calling them biased in favor of Gaza's Hamas rulers.But Israeli officials have voiced worry that the suspicions raised, if unaddressed, could hobble future military operations.Cabinet minister Yuli Edelstein said Israel would make do with internal army probes of last year's war that resulted in a handful of courts-martial over minor offences, but would deliver a formal response to the Goldstone report on Thursday.It is certainly already clear that, for many of the incidents and crimes described in the report, no proof was found, Edelstein told Israel Radio.Noting that Wednesday is U.N.-designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Edelstein said he would meet U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon in New York and suggest that the report had triggered recent attacks on Jews worldwide.When you light a match in the name of freedom of expression and human rights and even the fight against war crimes, when the double-standard is so salient ... sometimes it is translated in a manner far more extreme than the U.N. may have intended,Edelstein said.
FROM HOLOCAUST TO HAMAS
Israel said it attacked Gaza to stem years of Palestinian rocket salvoes and in the absence of peace prospects with Hamas, an Islamist group that refuses to recognize the Jewish state and spurns Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for his diplomacy.
Israeli shelling in Gaza's cramped precincts killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians. They were the focus of the Goldstone report, though it also rebuked Hamas for its rockets -- which killed 10 Israeli civilians in the war. Three troops also died.An Israeli diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the response to the Goldstone report aimed to disprove allegations that Israel wreaked deliberate damage on Gaza's impoverished and aid-dependant civilian infrastructure.Israel will pass this document on to the relevant U.N. officials, but still insists that it remains outside of the Goldstone process,the diplomat said.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland, site of Nazi death camps. He similarly linked the Gaza war's fallout to anti-Semitism.The fight against anti-Semitism is more crucial than ever, as there is a significant increase in the manifestations of anti-Semitism since Operation Cast Lead, he told his cabinet, using Israel's codename for the Gaza offensive.This anti-Semitism comes with a new tack, which is the bid to deprive the Jewish state of the right to self-defense.Goldstone is himself Jewish and has publicly identified as a Zionist. Israeli officials say they regard his ethnicity as irrelevant to the substance of the report.
US envoy meets Israeli defence minister in push for peace
Sat Jan 23, 4:41 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – US envoy George Mitchell met Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Saturday as he pursued his efforts to revive the Middle East peace process.A brief statement from the defence ministry said discussions between Mitchell and Barak had centred on the means of relaunching the peace process.The meeting came a day after Mitchell held talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and the day before with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid pessimism of any breakthrough.Israelis and Palestinians have been blaming each other for the stalemate with Mitchell able to convince them to return to the negotiating table.On Friday chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Israel was responsible for the lack of progress and also acknowledged there were differences between the Palestinians and US administration.The American side wants to resume negotiations now without a complete halt to settlements, Erakat said.We want to resume negotiations on the basis of defining the borders of the Palestinian state on all Palestinian lands occupied since 1967 including east Jerusalem, and a complete halt to all settlement activities, he said.A statement from Netanyahu's office blamed the Palestinians for blocking the resumption of peace talks, suspended since Israel's devastating 22-day war on the Gaza Strip last winter.Israel is not making any conditions for the resumption of negotiations. The Palestinians are undermining this resumption by making conditions which they had never made before,it said.Officials in Netanyahu's office said the prime minister could meet again with Mitchell on Sunday.
US President Barack Obama has admitted his drive for a deal may have been overambitious and told the latest edition of Time Magazine: This is as intractable a problem as you get.Obama said if his administration had anticipated the political problems, we might not have raised expectations as high.Washington had pressed hard for Israel to freeze settlement construction, which Abbas has demanded ahead of any resumption of talks.Mitchell has also visited Lebanon and Syria during his latest mission to the region which started Tuesday.
Israel's Netanyahu seeks to calm nerves on Lebanon
Sat Jan 23, 2:56 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday sought to calm regional nerves over fears of an imminent conflict with Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas by saying Israel sought peace with its neighbors.In an unusual move, Netanyahu's office issued a statement quoting him saying that the Jewish state was not planning any imminent attack on Lebanon, from where Hezbollah launched some 4,000 rockets at it during a 2006 war.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clarifies that Israel is not seeking any conflict with Lebanon ... Israel seeks peace with its neighbors, the statement read.An official at Netanyahu's office said the prime minister's statement came in response to fears expressed recently in Lebanon that Israel might launch an attack on Hezbollah.Earlier on Saturday, Israeli minister Yossi Peled, a former army general with past experience of the conflict on the northern border, said that another confrontation with Hezbollah was almost inevitable but he could not say when it might happen.In my estimation, understanding and knowledge it is almost clear to me that it is a matter of time before there is a military clash in the north,Peled said.(Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Jon Boyle)
Sour words on Mideast peace as Obama admits setbacks By Douglas Hamilton – Thu Jan 21, 3:34 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Israel and the Palestinians belittled each other's commitment to peace as U.S. President Barack Obama admitted on Thursday he had underrated the difficulty of reviving deadlocked Middle East negotiations.As his envoy George Mitchell began a fresh attempt to get the two sides talking to each other, Obama told Time Magazine: This is just really hard ... and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high.Obama said his administration had underestimated the internal political constraints preventing bold peace moves by either camp and 2009 had ended without the kind of breakthrough he set out to achieve at the start of his term.Moving forward, though, we are going to continue to work with both parties to recognize what I think is ultimately their deep-seated interest in a two-state solution in which Israel is secure and Palestinians have sovereignty and can start focusing on developing their economy and improving the lives of their children and grandchildren,the president said.In an inauspicious start to his first diplomatic shuttle of 2010 after a dozen fruitless visit last year, Mitchell flew into a war of words with each side accusing the other of cynicism.The U.S. envoy said before talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres that he recognized the complexities and difficulties of pursuing Middle East peace, but made no comment on the sour rhetoric that greeted him.
CONFIDENTIAL
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had on Wednesday imposed further conditions on negotiations and announced Israel's intention to continue its occupation of the West Bank whatever happens.
Benjamin Netanyahu has said No to a settlement freeze, No to sharing Jerusalem, No to the 1967 borders, No to the rights of Palestinian refugees. Now he wants to retain the Jordan Valley, Erekat said in a statement.He was referring to a comment by Netanyahu that Israel would retain military control around any future Palestinian state that included the West Bank.We had hoped to hear a clear commitment to negotiations without preconditions. What we got instead was Mr. Netanyahu again trying to dictate their terms and preempt their outcome, Erakat said.Addressing the foreign press late on Wednesday, Netanyahu attacked the Palestinian leadership for rejecting U.S. calls to relaunch negotiations suspended for over a year.The Palestinians have climbed up a tree, he said.And they like it up there. People bring ladders to them. We bring ladders to them. The higher the ladder, the higher they climb.
Mitchell, as usual, said little and there was no immediate clue as to whether the public rhetoric might mask a more positive atmosphere in closed-door talks, first with Netanyahu in Jerusalem and then on Friday with Palestinians in Ramallah.
Critics said Israel had placed another obstacle in Mitchell's path by agreeing to upgrade to university status a college built in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
The decision by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, formalizing a 2005 cabinet ruling, coincided with the envoy's visit. Erekat said it was part of the same policy of dictation rather than negotiation.Every time Senator Mitchell comes to the region, they greet him with such policies, Erekat added.Israel plans to keep the Ariel settlement under any peace deal to create a Palestinian state. Palestinians acknowledge some settlements could be annexed in return for land elsewhere.
WEAKER PARTNER
Diplomats say Mitchell seems to be seeking a face-saving way for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to drop his insistence that Netanyahu must stop all settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem before negotiations can be resumed. Netanyahu's right-wing coalition got off to a rough start 10 months ago with the Obama administration, rebuffing Washington's call for a total halt to Jewish settlement building. When Mitchell first visited, the Israeli leader was refusing even to talk about establishing a Palestinian state. But last June he embraced the two-state solution and in November he ordered a partial 10-month halt to settlement building. Western diplomats say Washington now seems increasingly frustrated with Abbas. One, speaking privately, said Abbas as the weaker partner was now the focus of U.S. efforts. There was an implicit threat of cuts in U.S. aid to the West Bank if Abbas held out against resuming talks, he said. Abbas hinted last week at a possible way out of the impasse, if Washington framed the talks in such a way as to set an endgame, with the goal of a Palestinian state within a couple of years, or to define the parameters of the deal. But Israel says that would prejudge the negotiations. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Allyn Fisher-Ilan. Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Paul Taylor)
