PRINT ALL
EMAIL TO A FRIEND
DOWNLOAD TO PDF
RSSEvents | Daily News | About Us | Resources | Contact Us | Donate | Site Map | Privacy Policy
[5]
As preparations intensify for a Palestinian-Israeli summit meeting in Washington on Thursday, the crude outlines of a Palestinian state are emerging in the West Bank, with increasingly reliable security forces, a more disciplined government and a growing sense among ordinary citizens that they can count on basic services.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, will open talks on a two-state solution on Thursday in Washington. These will be the first direct negotiations between the two sides in 20 months, and there will be an early test of the two leaders’ seriousness of purpose.
Say what you will about the Arab world, it's hard to earn its gratitude. President Obama went to Egypt and not Israel. He demanded that Israel cease adding new settlements in the West Bank. He treated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with a chilling disdain. For all of that, though, Obama's approval rating in Arab countries has sunk. Unlike almost a fifth of Americans, the Arab world clearly knows Obama is no Muslim.
After nearly three decades of failed peace negotiations, Israelis and Palestinians are understandably dubious about the prospects for success of the latest round of talks, this one between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, starting in Washington on Thursday. President Obama had to drag the leaders to the bargaining table after a 20-month hiatus in face-to-face contact between the two sides.
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad apologized Monday evening for the actions of Palestinian Authority security forces at a conference meant to protest the PLO's decision to return to direct peace talks.
"As prime minister, I am fully responsible for what happened and I apologize," Fayyad said during a news conference celebrating the "home stretch to freedom" and the start of the second year of the Plan of the 13th Government.
"As I feel sorry when I say that, I feel confident that it will never be repeated," he added calling "what happened on Wednesday ... obviously a big error."
A year into his two-year plan to build a Palestinian state, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad says the next goal is be a self-sufficient economy.
Speaking at a presentation marking the midway point of his plan, Fayyad said recent growth was a result of foreign aid, but aid-dependency must be reduced to build an economy that can support statehood.
The Ramallah-based prime minister explained that financial policy reforms and investment were required to achieve the aim of a democratic system that incorporates freedom of speech, civil liberties and a strong civil society.
Two-thirds of Palestinians are in favor of either direct or indirect negotiations with Israel, the results of a new poll released Monday finds.
The Palestinian Center for Public Opinion surveyed over 1,000 Palestinians from the West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem and Gaza earlier this month, ahead of the resumption of direct talks in Washington on 2 September.
Around one-third (31.7 percent) of Palestinians were in favor of resuming direct negotiations, while 31.1 percent favored continuing indirect talks.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Monday announced the second part of his plan which aims at preparing national institutions for a possible declaration of a Palestinian statehood.
In the second year of the two-year plan, which was first declared in August 2009, would focus on "continuing the rebuilding of the state's organizations."
The newly-revealed part of the plan include spreading the basis of fairness, transparency, separation of powers and boosting security and order, Fayyad said in a news conference.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to offer Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas several "goodwill gestures" in exchange for the Palestinian leader's approval of an Israeli renewal of construction activity in the West Bank, political sources said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Monday forecast a "moment of reckoning" in the coming weeks when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is forced to explain what kind of state he has in mind for the Palestinians.
The Palestinians are set to resume direct negotiations with Israel in Washington on Thursday. They will be the first direct talks in 20 months and are the result of painstaking U.S. diplomacy aimed at reviving the peace process.
Fayyad has expressed doubt about whether Netanyahu is ready to offer the Palestinians a state on terms they could accept.
Just hours before he takes off for the US for the start of direct talks with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received surprising political reinforcement from Shas even as it remains unclear how he will maneuver around the continuation of the West Bank settlement building moratorium demanded by the US and the Palestinians.
Ynet learned that Shas is prepared to allow Netanyahu "breathing space" after the building freeze expires not to stick to his original promise to renew construction throughout the West Bank.
Israel is looking into the possibility that it will receive an arms package as compensation from the United States in the event that it reaches a peace agreement with the Palestinians that entails significant concessions, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Israel’s argument is that there is a need to compensate for security assets that would be lost under a deal that would necessitate a withdrawal from almost all of the West Bank.
There won’t be many more opportunities to make it work. That is the growing consensus. Even if the public does not sense it, there is a real urgency; we must move toward reaching an agreement. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolvable. There are solutions to all problems. In addition to the multiple rounds of Track I negotiations that have taken place since Madrid in 1991, there have also been thousands of hours of informal Track II negotiations in which a couple of hundred Israeli and Palestinian experts have participated and have reached understandings and “shelf agreements.”
The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, warned today that a "moment of reckoning" was approaching as Israel and the Palestinian Authority prepare to embark this week on their first direct negotiations for 20 months.
Setting out his second-year plans to build the institutions and framework of a Palestinian state, due to be completed in 12 months, Fayyad said the talks "can and must" succeed or the chances of a two-state solution to the conflict would fade.
With two months left before the midterm elections, a hawkish group is targeting several congressional Democrats who last January signed a letter sponsored by J Street, the dovish Israel lobby, pressing the administration to get Israel to loosen its blockade of Gaza.
As the newly founded Emergency Committee for Israel airs attack ads against these congressional candidates, J Street is responding with a campaign of its own seeking to discredit the group as extreme and out of sync with the mainstream Jewish community.
The idea of the one-state solution keeps popping up, particularly when the two-state solution is undergoing difficulties. Maybe this is because people in the region are unable to imagine anything other than one- or two-state solutions.
Recently, and in view of the serious difficulties facing the peace process as well as the evident drift toward radicalization and the political right in both Israel and Palestine, we have again begun hearing the idea of a one-state solution.
he idea of a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seemingly never ceases to surprise and even entertain. It used to be official PLO policy, before the PNC adopted the two-state solution over 20 years ago. In recent years, with the two-state solution going nowhere, there has been a revival of interest in the one-state idea in Palestinian intellectual circles and even among some Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/14981
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/14981
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/14981
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/world/middleeast/31mideast.html?_r=3&ref=global-home
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/opinion/31tue1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
[8] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/30/AR2010083003775.html
[9] http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-peacetalks-20100831,0,6677888.story
[10] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=312033
[11] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=311976
[12] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=311905
[13] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/30/c_13470015.htm
[14] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/30/c_13470009.htm
[15] http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/fayyad-netanyahu-must-explain-his-definition-of-palestinian-state-1.311107
[16] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3946523,00.html
[17] http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=186516
[18] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=186538
[19] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/30/israel-palestinians-us-washington-talks
[20] http://www.forward.com/articles/130842/
[21] http://www.bitterlemons.org/issue/pal1.php
[22] http://www.bitterlemons.org/issue/isr1.php
Front Page Features