Palestine News Network (PNN) : "U.S. proposes 18-month negotiation plan, but Israeli settlements may make the task impossible"

U.S. proposes 18-month negotiation plan, but Israeli settlements may make the task impossible

28.07.09 - 11:52

Ramallah/PNN – In an attempt to resume peace negotiations between Palestine and Israel, U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell is meeting with several leaders in the region. But his efforts will be futile without a stop to Israeli settlements, according to sources close to Abbas.

 In several meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Mitchell acknowledged that the biggest obstacle to continued talks is the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territories.

According to informed sources, Mitchell suggested that Palestine and Israel open negotiations for 18 months to reach a political agreement. The source added that the U.S. is trying to finalize the borders of a Palestinian state and to dismantle all Israeli settlements located within those borders, while allowing for a Jewish state outside of the Palestinian Territories. The settlements are considered illegal under international law.

So far, the Obama administration has failed to halt the expansion of settlements, including in East Jerusalem. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to heed the U.S. call for an end to settlement-building in the heart of the West Bank, saying that Israel had a right to build there.

Mitchell met with Netanyahu Tuesday morning, trying to get a firm pledge from him not to expand settlements and to re-engage with Palestine. Also up for discussion was easing restrictions on Palestinians living in the West Bank.

Netanyahu made it clear that Israel and the U.S., while allies, do not agree on every issue — referring to his dispute with Washington about the settlements in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu is trying to rally broad public and political support for settlement expansion. Israeli analysts have written newspaper articles in recent days, claiming that Netanyahu has used the Shepherd Hotel in Jerusalem to generate a crisis with the Obama administration and gain pro-Jewish support in the Holy City. Built for Palestinian leader Haj Amin Al-Husayni in the early 20th century, the historic hotel is set to be demolished to make way for an apartment building.

Jake Wallace, the U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, held a series of meetings with Palestinian officials prior to Mitchell’s arrival, proposing that both sides resume negotiations without a complete settlement freeze.

But aides to Abbas say that Israel must halt settlements before he’ll return to negotiations, for fear that the Israeli government would have no reason to cease settlement expansion otherwise, especially in Jerusalem.
“If the U.S. administration failed to convince the Israeli government to stop settlement expansion, it is unbelievable that they would be able to get them to withdraw from the Occupied Territories at all in order to resolve the issues of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees,” said Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). “The cessation of settlements, including ‘natural growth,’ is not simply a Palestinian condition for the resumption of negotiations, but it is a commitment that Israel made under the road map.”

The “road map” Erekat refers to is a proposed resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, developed in 2002 by the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations. The plan calls for an independent state for Palestine, and its first condition is a withdrawal of Israeli settlements and an end to settlement expansion.

 Palestinian sources say that Abbas is not satisfied with the U.S. desire for compromise on settlement expansion. He’s convinced that ending settlement expansion is the only indicator of an Israeli commitment to any peace process, and that continued settlement-building means that the Netanyahu government, like past Israeli governments since the Oslo agreement in 1993, isn’t seeking a political solution that’s acceptable to Palestinians.


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