“Israel” to Open Proximity Talks with Security, Water Demands and 187,000 Israeli Homes Planned in Occupied Jerusalem

Via Siver Lining

Posted on May 3, 2010 by realistic bird

by Faris Garabet

“Israel” to Open Proximity Talks with Security, Water Demands
Al Manar

03/05/2010 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to open the indirect talks with the Palestinian Authority this week with a discussion of the security arrangements in the West Bank and of water resources. According to Ynet, the indirect talks will commence on Wednesday and Netanyahu has decided to personally head negotiations.

A senior official told Haaretz that Netanyahu had recently asked the defense establishment and the National Security Council to elaborate on the so-called eight-point brief, which lists Israel’s security demands in terms of a permanent status agreement, as framed by Ehud Olmert’s government.

The PLO executive committee is expected Monday to officially decide to renew negotiations. The Arab League on Saturday gave its green light for the talks to go ahead after the Palestinians received US assurances that the construction would be shelved, an official of the pan-Arab organization said.

Israeli diplomats believe the Palestinians will prefer to open the negotiations with discussion of the borders – an issue on which the Palestinians think they have an advantage over the Israelis, since the United States position on this matter is close to their own.

Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to the American demand to talk about the core issues of a permanent status agreement: borders, occupied Jerusalem, security, water, settlements and refugees. However, each side has its own priorities which it will choose to focus on, and with which it will prefer to begin negotiations.

Netanyahu arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh this morning to confer with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the upcoming negotiations. Netanyahu went straight into talks with Mubarak after arriving in Egypt’s Red Sea resort. He was accompanied by the chairman of the National Security Committee, Uzi Arad, and Industry and Trade Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer.

In Egypt, Netanyahu hopes to receive more guarantees for the promotion of talks with the Palestinians. He expects Mubarak to appreciate the Israeli demand for absolute security as a condition for any future agreement. He furthermore hopes that the Egyptian president will work towards shortening the duration of indirect negotiations ahead of direct talks.

Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, is expected to arrive to launch the negotiations; he will meet with Netanyahu on Wednesday. Mitchell is expected to hold his first meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas later this week.
The envoy will spend the first phase of the proximity talks shuttling between Tel Aviv and Ramallah. In Tel Aviv, he will meet primarily with attorney Yitzhak Molcho, who was involved in negotiating with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister.

“The negotiations will be conducted in channels that are as discreet as possible and within a limited framework,” a senior government official said.

As part of his demand to expand the Olmert brief, Netanyhu has asked that it include detailed information concerning the demilitarization of any future Palestinian state and the deployment of Israeli occupation forces on its eastern border to prevent weapons smuggling.

The original document was authored by then chief of planning department at the General Staff and today commander of the Israeli Air Force, Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehoshtan. Its conditions already include Israeli monitoring of Palestinian border terminals, freedom of Israeli aviation in Palestinian airspace, Israeli control of the electromagnetic spectrum and early warning stations in the occupied West Bank. Both the Bush administration and the PA voiced reservations on the brief at the time.

While Netanyahu, unlike his predecessors Ehud Barak and Olmert, did not set up a negotiating team to run the talks per se, the PA is well prepared: Top-ranking Palestinian officials including Yasser Abed Rabbo, Saeb Erekat and Mahmoud Abbas himself have years of experience in negotiating with Israel. The Palestinians also have what they call a “negotiation support unit,” which has been operating continuously for over a decade.

On the Israeli side, by contrast, Molcho is the only close Netanyahu adviser with any experience in negotiating with the Palestinians.

Observers explain that Netanyahu’s reluctance to set up a large negotiating team stems from a fear of leaks. A source in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office told Haaretz, however, that there has been a tremendous amount of background work done ahead of the renewal of the talks.
It remains unclear which Israeli or other commitments have convinced the Palestinians to resume even indirect negotiations.

PA secretary Taib Abdel Rahim said Sunday that on his last visit to Ramallah, Mitchell brought a letter from U.S. President Barack Obama guaranteeing an American commitment to the two-state solution and an end to the occupation that began in 1967, and a binding statement declaring that the future Palestinian state will be independent and territorially contiguous.
Abbas has informed the U.S. of his new proposals concerning construction and house demolition in occupied Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as a provocation. The Palestinian president is set to meet with Obama in Washington later this month.

Despite Proximity Talks, 187,000 Israeli Homes Planned in Occupied Jerusalem

Al Manar

03/05/2010 Despite immense international pressure to halt Israeli construction in occupied east Jerusalem and in all areas over the Green Line, Israel Land Fund founder Aryeh King on Sunday presented a plan that would see nearly 200,000 new housing units created there.

Speaking at a conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center to discuss future development initiatives in Tel Aviv, King described a plan that would use privately owned land and property belonging to the Jewish National Fund to provide roughly 187,000 new homes in occupied Jerusalem and a chain of territory extending from Ramallah to Bethlehem.

“If Jerusalem doesn’t expand, and expand eastward, it will become the Gaza Strip,” King said.
Using a blown-up map of the city and its surrounding areas, King showed the audience where hundreds of dunams of land outside the northern Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood could contain roughly 12,000 new housing units.

Around the southern Gilo neighborhood, King said, there is enough similar land to build 60,000 units, he said.

King’s vision faces a number of obstacles, among them the area’s large Palestinian population, who claim the territory for a future Palestinian state.

While King stressed that much of the land was “empty and unused” property, redrawing Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries to include such areas would drastically affect the occupied city’s demographics, though he didn’t seem perturbed.

“I’m ready and willing to bring 200,000 [additional] Arabs into [a wider municipal boundary of] Jerusalem,” King told the audience. “As long as there are 800,000 Jews that come with them.”

Another problem is the current freeze on Israeli housing starts in “Judea and Samaria”, and the de facto building freeze in occupied Jerusalem, which the city’s politicians have been hard-pressed to acknowledge over recent weeks.

Ever since the approval of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo was announced during US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit in March, sparking a diplomatic row with Washington over construction even within occupied Jerusalem, all government bodies dealing with such building plans have either refrained from meeting or addressed only minor projects.
While King’s plan allows for some leeway in this area, as much of the property in question is privately owned and within the occupied Jerusalem municipal boundaries – any projects outside those boundaries and over the Green Line would need Israeli Defense Ministry approval.

“The state will eventually have to become involved,” King acknowledged on Sunday. “But the fact remains, Jerusalem must grow, and these are prime areas for it to grow into.”

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian