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The short drive from Jerusalem to Ramallah begins as you'd expect. The pristine setting of the old-new holy city slowly morphs into a more disordered vista on the outskirts of town — small Arab villages, humbly built of stone, displaying signs of economic decay. The streets are nearly empty.
Israel's foreign minister said Wednesday that it would be unacceptable to extend a slowdown on West Bank settlement construction, even as Mideast peace talks get under way next week.
Avigdor Lieberman, whose ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party is a major partner in the governing coalition, told Israel Radio he realized that resuming settlement construction would antagonize both the U.S. and the Palestinians. But he said that maintaining tight restrictions on building would "punish" tens of thousands of Israelis living in the settlements.
Hamas leader in exile Khaled Mash'al said a return to direct negotiations with Israel was "nationally illegitimate, carried out by force and American summons," on Tuesday.
Mash'al, speaking at an iftar dinner held for journalists in Damascus, said the PLO Executive Committee's decision to endorse the talks was "an echo of Washington's orders," adding that consensus was not reached among Palestinian factions, with most of the 11 parties making up the PLO opposing a return to talks with Israel.
An Israeli military court on Tuesday found the leader of a West Bank protest movement guilty of incitement and organizing illegal demonstrations.
Abdallah Abu Rahmah of Bil'in, near Ramallah, could face jail time for his leadership in the popular campaign against Israel's wall, which severs the West Bank village for to protect nearby settlements.
The verdict was read in a military courtroom packed with friends, supporters, and family members, concluding an eight-month trial. Diplomats from Europe including a representative of the European Union attended.
It's the proverbial elephant in the room, the ghost at the banquet, the spectre no one wants to acknowledge. Even if Israel and the Palestinians can scale a mountain of scepticism and reach a peace treaty in the next 12 months, 40 percent of Palestinians would be part of it in name only, because they live in the Gaza Strip. Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers say they will never give Israel what it most wants from a Middle East deal, which is recognition of the Jewish state and a legitimate place in the Middle East.
Israel and the Palestinians have virtually no chance of reaching a peace deal within the one-year target set by the United States, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday.
"I think there's room to lower expectations and get real," Lieberman, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, told Israel Radio.
"There's no magic recipe ... that can bring us within a year to a permanent agreement resulting in the end of the conflict and the solution of all of the complicated issues, such as refugees, Jerusalem and Jewish settlement," he said.
Damascus-based Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal said Tuesday that the direct talks between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel are illegal and under U.S. coercion.
"The direct negotiations lack for the Palestinian and Arab approval, which means they lack for the legitimacy," Mashaal said during an Iftar (the meal after fast over) on Tuesday.
"Palestinian negotiators are isolated as they bet on the United States instead of the Palestinian people," he said.
Palestinian and international activists on Tuesday removed parts of a security fence the Israeli army has installed along its borders with the Gaza Strip, witnesses said.
The incident took place during a demonstration organized by humanitarian and social activists against the enforcement of a 300- meter wide buffer zone along Gaza's northern and eastern borders with Israel.
Tens of people, including some international campaigners and farmers, participated in the rally which started from the border town of Beit Hanoun and headed towards the Israeli fence, waving Palestinian flags.
Two top U.S. officials were scheduled to arrive in Israel Wednesday to begin preliminary negotiations ahead of next week's diplomatic summit in Washington, the first direct Israeli-Palestinian talks in 20 months.
The two officials are Daniel Shapiro, a top National Security Council staffer handling Israel and neighboring countries, and David Hale, deputy to special Mideast envoy George Mitchell.
Each official will meet separately with Isaac Molho - an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and head of the Israeli negotiating team - and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.
The immediate result of the announced resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks was the setting of a new target date on the Middle Eastern calendar: August 2011. That is when talks on all permanent-status issues, as well as Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's project of building a Palestinian state-in-the-making, are both due to conclude.
Despite the fact that they occurred almost simultaneously, any connection between the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq and Washington's invitation of the leaders of Jordan and Egypt to a summit inaugurating direct Israel-Palestinian talks might appear to be entirely coincidental.
The Obama administration expects Israel to refrain from making any move that could potentially damage peace talks with the Palestinians once they begin, United States Middle East envoy George Mitchell has told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mitchell conveyed the same message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
In recent days, Abbas has made clear that if Israel renews building in West Bank settlements, after a 10-month freeze on settlement construction on September 27, the Palestinian Authority will abandon the direct peace talks.
With the Washington peace summit a mere week away, Likud members who are right off the party's political line are gearing for several protests meant to ensure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows his party will not abide the continuous suspension of settlement activity.
Members of the Likud's "right wing" have decided to hold a protest rally while Netanyahu is in Washington. Several senior Likud and Knesset members are expected to take part in it.
A partial peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, even if achieved within a year, will not satisfy Washington, a US official said Tuesday.
The American official told reporters in Jerusalem that the upcoming peace summit in Washington aims to strike a full peace agreement between the parties. The official rejected the possibility of "only" a partial or interim peace deal within the timeframe set for the peace talks.
Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, wrote a timely report last month entitled “Are the Palestinians Building A State?”
His paper discussed the Palestinian Authority under Salam Fayyad and his claims to be building the institutional apparatus necessary for a Palestinian state. The report acknowledged that he is “unmistakably doing so in an authoritarian context.”
Two courts in separate cases rejected the state's refusal to allow Palestinians to continue living in Israel with their spouses and participate in the gradual procedure for obtaining permanent residential status.
In the first case, on Tuesday, Deputy Supreme Court President Eliezer Rivlin rejected an appeal by the state to hold another hearing before an expanded court, after a panel of three Supreme Court justices had decided to allow Balal Daka to continue living in the country.
The right of return for Palestinian refugees is a major sticking point in the upcoming US-sponsored Middle East peace talks, but some younger Palestinians - having never laid eyes on their ancestral homeland - say they do not actually want to go back.
As a third-generation Palestinian growing up in Syria, Bissan al-Sharif says she feels rooted in Damascus.
"I don't know if I would leave everything and go and live [in my ancestral village] because I don't know the place," says Ms Sharif.
Binyamin Netanyahu has scored a diplomatic victory, as many pundits have pointed out, because the US administration has shifted pressure from Israel to the Palestinians and coaxed them into direct talks with Israel. He probably assumes that the talks will fail because the Palestinians will walk out at some point, and then he will have a case for maintaining the status quo. But such a victory would be hollow.
Two weeks before their launch, the promised renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks has already engendered a first: a joint statement of welcome by mainstream U.S. Jewish and Palestinian groups.
"We congratulate the Obama administration on succeeding in getting direct negotiations back on track," said a statement issued jointly on Friday by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the American Task Force on Palestine. "Both parties must now show courage, flexibility and persistence in order to move towards a negotiated end of conflict agreement."
When the US President, through his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, invites the Israelis and the Palestinians to hold direct negotiations under the auspices of the United States, and the International Quartet (of the EU, Russia, the United States, and the United Nations), then this is something that is worthy of interest and analysis of the hidden meanings and messages, for even if this does not benefit our understanding in this round [of negotiations] it could benefit us in future rounds.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/14881
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/14881
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/14881
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chasen-fayyad-2-20100825,0,4370253.story
[7] http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-ml-israel-palestinians,0,892778.story
[8] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=310543
[9] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=310397
[10] http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE67M0KQ.htm
[11] http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE67O0HR.htm
[12] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/25/c_13460758.htm
[13] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/24/c_13460325.htm
[14] http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/top-u-s-negotiators-in-israel-to-soothe-tensions-ahead-of-washington-peace-talks-1.310122
[15] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/august-2011-1.310075
[16] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/iraq-pullout-makes-israeli-palestinian-peace-crucial-for-u-s-1.310038
[17] http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-warns-israel-palestinians-refrain-from-harming-peace-talks-1.310001
[18] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3943386,00.html
[19] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3943318,00.html
[20] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=185853
[21] http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=185892
[22] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11072328
[23] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/25/middle-east-peace-talks-fail-palestinian-state
[24] http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/08/23/2740587/in-response-to-vague-talks-jewish-groups-deliver-vague-message
[25] http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=22089
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