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Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad's blueprint for what he has called "de facto Palestinian statehood" offers a new and important element to the quest for peace in the Middle East.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will approve the construction of hundreds of new housing units in Israeli settlements in the West Bank in the coming days as a prelude to a building freeze of six to nine months aimed at restarting peace talks with the Palestinians, senior Israeli officials said on Friday.
The plan is an attempt to ease pressure on Mr. Netanyahu from within his own Likud Party, which wants settlements to continue unimpeded, and from Washington, the Palestinian Authority and the rest of the Arab world, which want a total halt to such construction.
The prime minister is expected to back work on hundreds of new homes next week in addition to 2,500 units already being built, a senior aide said.
He will then consider a temporary halt to settlement building, as requested by the US in a bid to restart peace talks.
The news angered the Palestinians who said it was "absolutely unacceptable".
"The only thing suspended by this announcement will be the peace process," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told the AFP news agency.
'Moratorium'
Israeli warplanes bombed a tunnel allegedly linking the southern Gaza Strip with Israel early on Friday morning.
Also on Friday, witnesses in Gaza said Israeli military vehicles, including three armored bulldozers, razed farmland about 100 meters east of Gaza City. Israeli forces also reportedly fired on houses in the area.
Israel deployed police heavily in Jerusalem as tens of thousands of Palestinians headed to the city for noon prayers on the second Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Armed police and border guards were seen in what seemed like every street and alley of Old City surrounding cities.
For Palestinians from the West Bank, Friday was a rare chance to visit their capital and pray at Islam’s third holiest site: the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Thousands of Palestinians from Jerusalem and communities inside Israel were also expected.
Israel will approve construction of West Bank settlement homes before it considers a freeze sought by Washington, a top government official said on Friday, sparking Palestinian outrage.
The plan is also certain to anger the US administration, which has pushed for a freeze of Jewish settlements in an effort to restart the stalled Middle East peace process.
"In the next days the prime minister will approve construction starts and then he might consider a freeze for a limited time under certain conditions," the official told AFP, asking not to be identified.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be willing to consider suspending construction in the West Bank for several months — but first plans to authorize hundreds of new apartments there, an aide said Friday.
The U.S. has been pressing Israel to agree to a settlement freeze, and the Palestinians have said they would not resume peace talks unless Israel suspends construction on lands they want for a future state. Friday's statement was the first time an aide has said in the name of the prime minister's office that such a move could be imminent.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Thursday that he hopes for Israel to agree to a settlement freeze on occupied Palestinian land by the end of September.
"Concerning the peace process, we reaffirmed that we were entirely disposed to go forward with negotiations for the (Palestinian territories') final status if Israel stops settlement building," Abbas said.
"This is the main concern of the American administration and of all of our European friends with France leading," he told a press conference alongside French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner as he began a visit to France.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned approval of the construction of hundreds of new housing units in West Bank settlements is "unacceptable," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday in Paris.
"What the Israeli government said [about the planned construction] is not useful," Abbas said after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "It is unacceptable for us. We want a freeze on all settlement construction."
Believers the world over do not believe the ape was their ancestor. They are correct - man is apparently descended from the wolf. A pack of Arab wolves lynched a Jewish man in Tel Aviv and a pack of Jewish wolves preyed on an Arab man in Jerusalem this week. They know no God, so what do we expect of the poor apes?
Hamas leader in exile Khaled Meshal is planning to finalize a prisoner swap deal for the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit during a rare visit to Cairo this weekend, senior Palestinian sources told the Saudi daily Al-Watan on Friday.
Hamas spokesman Taher A-Nunu confirmed that Meshal was traveling to Cairo on Saturday for a round of talks with Egyptian officials, attended by the organization's top-brass from Gaza and Damascus.
Hours after the angered Palestinian response to Israel's plans to authorize the construction of hundreds of new housing units in the West Bank before implementing a settlement freeze it became apparent that the plans were not necessarily approved by the United States.
Kurt Hoyer, spokesman for the US embassy in Tel Aviv, said Friday Washington would be unlikely to accept anything "contrary to the spirit of negotiations they've been undertaking" and added it was "doubtful" the US had signed off on the Israeli decision.
Reports that Israel plans to approve the construction of hundreds of housing units in the West Bank before implementing the settlement freeze that was agreed upon with the United States has angered the Palestinian leadership.
Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Friday the planned Israeli move is "unacceptable". Earlier Friday an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "The prime minister plans to approve the construction of hundreds of news housing units in Judea and Samaria, before the freeze."
Following reports of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's plan to approve hundreds of new housing units in the West Bank before considering a brief settlement freeze, opposition leader Tzipi Livni said on Friday that the government did not know where is was headed and was playing a dangerous game of trying to please everyone.
"Israel's leaders, the elected government, in my opinion, still hasn't made a choice between two different outlooks. One, Jewish existence in every part of Israel, and two, the existence of a Jewish democratic state," she said in a speech at an IDF pensioners' event.
President Obama told Jewish leaders in a July meeting that Israel needs to “engage in serious self-reflection.” Israel’s new U.S. ambassador was “summoned” to the State Department to be lectured about Israel's building settlements in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called two top aides to Obama “self-hating Jews.”
All of these reports appeared in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.
And they've all been disputed or denied by the principals involved.
On two key issues of Barack Obama's foreign policy - Palestinian statehood and reconciliation with Iran - Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, has chosen to fight the American President. He has refused to bend to Obama's will, and is instead seeking to outwit and defeat him.
As the stage is being reportedly set for President Barack Obama to spell out his much-awaited ideas for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement at the opening of the UN General Assembly later this month, two issues remain regrettably overlooked or shortsightedly sidetracked. If this neglect persists, they have the potential of derailing a peaceful settlement.
It was not just among Americans that Barack Obama raised great expectations when he won last year’s US presidential elections. In this part of the world, people believed that he would solve the Palestinian issue. Repeated signs from him that restarting and solving the Middle East peace process was a foreign policy priority reinforced that view. As a result, Arab and Muslim attitudes toward the US softened.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/8710
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/8710
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/8710
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/04/independent-palestine
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/world/middleeast/05mideast.html?ref=world
[8] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8237499.stm
[9] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=223486
[10] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=223490
[11] http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iQvsk-eUW_rp2QPl2MDKbwz_tWeg
[12] http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD9AG9PUG0
[13] http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gCzL6fvJGGh3zWYW0ycwMd5evZdg
[14] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112403.html
[15] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112411.html
[16] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112396.html
[17] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3772133,00.html
[18] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3772070,00.html
[19] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1251804490949
[20] http://jta.org/news/article/2009/09/02/1007613/are-inaccurate-media-reports-hurting-us-israel-relationship
[21] http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10345962.html
[22] http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=19726
[23] http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=126063&d=4&m=9&y=2009
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