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Palestinians Preconditioning Peace Talks on Settlements Freeze
And that seems entirely reasonable to me:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday said that the United States is working with Israeli and Palestinian authorities, as well as Arab states, namely Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, to resume the peace negotiations “as soon as possible and without preconditions.” Clinton made the remarks after meeting Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Judeh, adding that Washington is to renew its commitment and increase efforts in persuading the parties to return to the talks.
The two officials called on the Palestinians and Israel to tackle the thorny issues of borders and the status of Jerusalem first, saying resolving the two issues would automatically resolve the dispute over Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a major obstacle in the peace process.
But Erekat said that Clinton “neglected the Arab position” that Israel must halt the building of Jewish settlements all-over the West Bank as well as in the occupied East Jerusalem.” Clinton also failed to “endorse the principle of the two-state solution,” Erekat said.
“How should we negotiate on the Palestinian state’s boundaries while the Israeli bulldozers and settlements are eating up the land that we want to build our state on?” Erekat said. “The settlement expansions must stop to give a chance for the negotiations to succeed.”
[...]
The Palestinians insist the borders of their future statehood encompass all of the land Israel occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem as their capital, while Israel deems Jerusalem as its indivisible capital.Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has also called on the international community to urge Israel to stop settlement in the Palestinian territories and end the blockade that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip for three years “before resuming any peace negotiations.”
Above quote comes from the complete Xinhua article, here.
4 Responses to “Palestinians Preconditioning Peace Talks on Settlements Freeze”
apparently this isn't a serious enough situation to actually do anything about it. you know, like cutting off aid to a terrorist nation. we happily send billions of dollars / year to the israeli's … of course with the added benefit of laundering/funneling much of it to our own military industrial complex by mandating that 3/4 of the aid be spent on US armaments.
oh to be in gaza and read made in the usa on the fragments of bombs dropped on one's shanty overnight.
Sure to start, but, soon after the 1967 borders….. yes, yes, I agree.
Apparently we are funding both Israel and Egypt to help them starve the Gazans.
The Green Line has never been sacrosanct or “the” future boundary, never was, never will be — it is merely a convenient example for demarcking that part of contested territories most hotly at issue. (Many Arabs view taking all the Territorial land bounded by the Green Line as the first step toward eliminating Israel completely, of course.) The Green Line is useful with idiots in the West, but that's all.
As to a separate nation, yes, it's logical, but first let Israel's enemies cease the state of war with it and recognize its existence, then demonstrate they are civilized and capable of forming and conducting themselves legitimately, as well as otherwise demonstrating they are ready to run a nation (as opposed to ruining Gaza once Israel evacuated that area).
Funny – we keep hearing how “intolerable” the situation is for the Palestinian Arabs. You'd think they'd be eager for talks.