.Almanar
05/05/2010
With US Mideast envoy George Mitchell scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday and finally begin US mediated indirect talks with the Palestinians, Israeli Deputy Premier Dan Meridor – who along with Defense Minister Ehud Barak represents the so-called “moderate” flank in Netanyahu’s seven-minister inner cabinet – told The Jerusalem Post a day earlier that indirect talks would lead nowhere.
In an interview that will be published in full in Friday’s Post, Meridor, who is in charge of intelligence and atomic affairs, said he was afraid the Palestinians were trying to avoid making “tough decisions,” by maneuvering the US and the world into imposing a solution to the conflict.
A senior Israeli government official, meanwhile, said late Tuesday evening that it was not certain that the indirect talks would start as expected with the Mitchell-Netanyahu meeting on Wednesday, and placed the blame on the Palestinians for adding an additional hurdle. The Israeli official would not elaborate.
A source in the U.S. administration said that at this point it appears that the Palestinian announcement will come only on Saturday, after the meeting of the PLO Executive Committee.
Meridor said a Palestinian attempt to avoid making tough decisions and bring about an imposed solution “won’t work.”
“This won’t work,” Meridor told the Post. “And I think the Americans tell this to the Palestinians. I think the corridor we go through, the entrance we go through to the [direct] talks – indirect talks, proximity talks – will not yield results. I hope yes, but think not. Everyone will want to pull America to their own side, and they won’t get closer, [rather] they will get farther apart...I think we need to go quickly to direct talks, in which we’ll have to make tough decisions, and they will have to make tough decisions.”
No one, he said, not the US, the European Union or the UN, can decide “for us that French Hill [in northeast Jerusalem] is Palestine, or Ma’aleh Adumim [east of the occupied city] is Palestine. They cannot do that. We need to come to an agreement.”
And this agreement, Meridor said, will only come through direct negotiations and tough decisions by both parties. He defined tough decisions as those that go against the “expectations of your own people.”
Because of a failure of the Palestinian leadership to make the tough decisions needed to “end the conflict,” Meridor said he was skeptical of the likelihood of getting an agreement within a short time.
Meanwhile, during a briefing at the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday morning, Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz, head of Military Intelligence’s Research Division, told MKs that the Palestinians were “already preparing the ground for the failure” of the proximity talks.
He said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wanted to paint Israel in a negative light in order to bring about its global isolation. “Although the PA president is interested in an agreement with Israel, his flexibility on the core issues is limited, and we don’t see any real attempt at being more flexible on the essential matters,” Baidatz said.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is scheduled to meet with Mitchell on Wednesday, and even though this is being touted as the long sought after start of indirect, or proximity, talks, the modalities of how it will all work are still unclear. Mitchell is then expected to meet with Abbas on Friday. He is scheduled to leave the region on Sunday.
This is the same type of shuttle diplomacy that Mitchell has engaged in over the past year, and one senior diplomatic source said it was not clear what would be different now under the “proximity talks” rubric. The official said that the immediate issues that would need to be discussed would be the modalities and goals of the new framework, as well as what issue to discuss first.
Although the Palestinians are keen on the two sides first tackling the question of borders, Israel wants the first issues to be security and the Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
Even though the core issues – occupied Jerusalem, security, borders and refugees – are to be discussed during the indirect talks, one official noted that other preconditions the Palestinians set for the talks, such as a complete building freeze in the settlements and in occupied Jerusalem, were not met.
OBAMA ADVISOR SAYS OCCUPIED JERUSALEM ISSUE AT END OF TALKS
And before the start of the proximity talks, the Obama administration has indicated that the issue of occupied Jerusalem will be discussed at the end of the talks, and not at the beginning.
The US interest in occupied Jerusalem stems from construction plans made public during Vice President Joe Biden's visit to the region, just a short time before Netanyahu was due to meet with US President Barack Obama in the White House.
But meanwhile senior administration figures have come to an agreement with the Israeli government and, at least for now, occupied Jerusalem is no longer in the headlines.
David Axelrod, top political advisor to the US president, said during a press conference with reporters from Israeli media channels that Obama agrees "Jerusalem as an issue can't be the first issue for negotiations."
Axelrod said the issue of occupied Jerusalem should "probably be the last" issue. Thus he toed Israel's line, according to which this is a particularly sensitive issue, and should therefore be left until other core issues have been agreed on – first and foremost the issue of borders.
National Security Council Middle East Senior Director Dan Shapiro said during the annual Anti-Defamation League conference, that the Palestinians and other Arab leaders must prepare their citizens for peace by stopping incitement, educating towards coexistence and begin normalizing relations with Israel.
Shapiro added that the US administration will not hesitate to denounce incitement and anything that raises doubts about the Jewish people's historic connection to occupied Jerusalem.
Barhoum: American financial backing to Abbas a "bribe"
[ 05/05/2010 - 04:31 PM ]
GAZA, (PIC)-- The American administration's donation of 150 million dollars to Mahmoud Abbas's authority in Ramallah immediately after his acceptance to return to negotiations was a "bribe", Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said.
He said in a press release on Wednesday that Abbas in return would offer more concessions to the Israeli occupation government during those negotiations.
Barhoum said that the money was also a reward for Abbas for his constant efforts to wipe out and incriminate resistance while protecting Israeli security.
Such bribes and politicized money endanger the Palestinian people's unity and their rights and main issues, the spokesman said, explaining that the funds would be spent under the supervision of American Gen. Keith Dayton to arm, train and finance the Fatah-controlled security apparatuses to continue their efforts in quelling freedoms in the West Bank along with fighting resistance and preserving the security of Zionist occupation and settlers.
Barhoum described as sheer lies the Fatah media reports that those funds would be spent on the people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, adding that such reports are meant to deceive the public opinion and to cover for Abbas and his illegitimate premier Salam Fayyad's cooperation with occupation in imposing Zio-American projects at the expense of Palestinian rights.
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