Israel officially accepts Quartet proposal

[Jefferson23]

PM's office announces Israel accepts call to resume peace talks with no preconditions,
notes reservations will be raised during negotiations.

snip* Over the weekend, the Palestinians expressed opposition to the Quartet's "vague statement" and stressed they will not accept lengthy negotiations. Fatah official Nabil Shaath said: "The international community must take harsh and clear steps to point out the terms of negotiations and take harsh steps against those who violate them; but we, the Palestinians, are the only ones being punished when we break the terms. "

in full: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4129817,00.html

[Jefferson23]

1. PA officials: Israel's Mideast peace calls useless without settlement freeze

Following Netanyahu's acceptance of Quartet peace talks blueprint, chief Abbas aide says Israel has to commit to international resolutions on settlement building, 1967 borders.

By Haaretz

Israel's acceptance of a roadmap for peace by the Quartet on the Middle East is meaningless unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu freezes all settlement construction and recognizes 1967 borders, Palestinian officials said on Sunday.

Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu and his eight senior cabinet ministers decided to support the Quartet's plan for renewing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within a month without preconditions.

snip* Also commenting on Israel's announcement on Sunday, Palestinian official Saeb Erakat told the French AFP news agency that Netanyahu's statement was an "an exercise in deceiving the international community."

"If he accepts the Quartet statement then he must announce a halt to settlement activity, including natural growth, and accept the principle of the 1967 borders because this is what was clearly demanded by the Quartet statement."

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/pa-officials-israel-s-mideast-peace-calls-useless-without-settlement-freeze-1.387707

[shira]

4. Israel froze settlements 10 months while the PA evaded talks.

First, the PA should give a reason why they evaded talks last time around.

[Jefferson23]

5. The Moratorium ‘Was a Fiction Right from the Outset’

“The construction boom here began shortly before the building freeze,” says Dror Etkes, who is perhaps the Israeli who knows the most about the settlements. For years he has been documenting settlement construction and submitting complaints against illegal projects.

Etkes is sure that active construction is taking place in at least 46 out of 120 settlements. Building projects have only actually been frozen in five settlements, he says. Even government inspectors have found violations of the moratorium in 29 settlements. So far, however, no construction firm has been called to account over those violations. That is despite the fact that the building freeze, for the first time in Israeli history, is not just a “political” requirement, but is actually enshrined in law — meaning that any violation should be legally punished.

Additionally, infrastructure projects are not included in the building moratorium. As a result, a number of sewage treatment plants and water reservoirs are being built in settlements — including on Palestinian land. In Beitar Illit, a new road is being built.

Neither were the associated financial incentives — the only reason that many Israelis choose to live in the West Bank — affected by the moratorium. Those benefits include cheap loans, subsidized rents, tax breaks and countless other perks, all of which could easily be cancelled.

“The difference between the level of construction before and during the moratorium is much, much less than the settlers claim,” says Etkes. “It’s not just that the building freeze has been undermined — it was a fiction right from the outset.” One of the consequences, he says, has been that construction activities have become even more focused on the eastern settlements — in other words, those small, isolated and often radical settlements that would need to be evacuated if a peace agreement were reached. It is expected that the inhabitants of those settlements would defend themselves with force against such a move.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,715614,00.html

[shira]

12. The PA never said that. In fact, they're calling for another "fictional" freeze.

In all their talk about another freeze, have they ever once stated that THIS time - as opposed to last time - they want a "real" freeze?

Nope.

You guys are more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves.

[Jefferson23]

13. Your "evidence" is hilarious.

Carry on.

[shira]

14. Your evidence is non-existant. I'm still waiting for you to show where the PA is calling...

...for a "real" freeze now, as opposed to the "fictional" 10 month freeze in 2010, that they wanted extended.

Comical.

[Jefferson23]

15. You haven't produced anything to counter the two separate accounts I have given you, nothing.

Abbas did not come to negotiate during the alleged freeze because it did not include Jerusalem.

[shira]

18. Is Netanyahu Quietly Freezing Settlements? (TIME)

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1985251,00.html

Find me any article showing Abbas calling for a "real freeze" at the end of the 'fictional' 10 month moratorium.

I'm still waiting.

[Jefferson23]

19. I don't have to show you any more than I already did, and you think this OP

helps you? You're funny.

People can read the links I left and decide for themselves.

[shira]

26. Maan News, Sept 2010: Abbas calls for extension of fictional freeze

Abbas: Without freeze extension, talks to end
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=313673

[Donald Ian Rankin]

30. Ever heard of Gilo?

[BeenThereDoneThat]

31. Gilo

Do you even know where Gilo is relative to Jerusalem?

[azurnoir]

32. welcome to DU

and as to your user name I'll bet you have

[BeenThereDoneThat]

33. Thank you

And no I've never been to Gilo but I do know how to read a map

[azurnoir]

34. well yes and here's some of the history of ring neighborhood of Gilo

In 1970, the Israeli government expropriated 12,300 dunams of land to build a ring of new neighborhoods around Jerusalem on land conquered in the Six-Day War. Gilo was established in 1973. According to an Israeli municipal planner, most Gilo land had been legally purchased by Jews before World War II, much of it during the 1930s, and that Jewish landowners had not relinquished their ownership of their land when the area was captured by the Jordanians in the 1948 War.<8> According to other sources, the land belonged to the Palestinian villages of Sharafat, Beit Jala and Beit Safafa.<9><10> With its expansion over the years, Gilo has formed a wedge between Jerusalem and Beit Jala-Bethlehem.<9>

<snip>

From its inception, Gilo has provided housing to new Jewish immigrants from around the world. Many of those who spent their first months in the country at the immigrant hostel in Gilo, including those from Iran, Syria, France and South America, chose to remain in the neighborhood. Since the large influx of Soviet Jews in the 1990s, Gilo has absorbed 15% of all immigrants of that wave settling in Jerusalem.<16> The immigrant hostel is now the site of an urban kibbutz, Beit Yisrael.<14> Gilo is a mixed community of religious and secular Jews, although more Haredi families are moving in.<14>

This page was last modified on 3 October 2011 at 07:28.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilo

being an expansion neighborhood of East Jerusalem does not exempt Gilo from being part of the occupied territories

[BeenThereDoneThat]

35. By your standards

The Western wall and the Jewish quarter in the Old City are also settlements. That stubbornness guarantees the problem will never be resolved. Is that your wish?

[azurnoir]

36. how do you presume to know my standards?

albeit that is a rather familiar line the simple fact is the entire city of East Jerusalem along with all of its religious sites is considered occupied or at the very least disputed territory at the moment
however your last sentence seems to have a my way (Israel's?) or the highway ring to it, is that your standard?

[King_David]

2. Israel called their bluff

and the Palistinian leadership said they not interested in peace.

[azurnoir]

3. ah ya right brillant strategy and all that

except no one except those who want the occupation to continue or who are entirely ignorant of the situation except for what Fox News says believe the maneuver, it's as transparently cynical as cellophane

[King_David]

7. Like you know who believes what ?

Ha ha
Check your theory with democratic party members of congress .

Ok?

;)

[azurnoir]

9. Democratic Party members believe for the most part they want to get re-elected

and supporting Israel makes that easy as my Congress women found when AIPAC tried to blackmail her by threatening to have her placed on a terror watch list when she did not vote as they wanted she held her ground and has been re-elected several times since but in some other areas its not that easy

[Jefferson23]

10. azurnoir, who is this? n/t

[azurnoir]

20. Betty McCollum the incident with AIPAC happened in 2006

there was a thread about here on DU

A congresswoman says the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is unwelcome in her office until it apologizes for an activist who allegedly called her a terrorist supporter.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) alleged that the supporter told her chief of staff that “Congresswoman McCollum´s support for terrorists will not be tolerated."

McCollum is one of two members of the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee who voted against a bill that AIPAC strongly endorses and that would cut off the Palestinian Authority.

AIPAC says the bill is necessary to isolate Hamas, the terrorist group now in control of the P.A. government. McCollum and some others in Congress back isolating Hamas, but say the bill goes too far, cutting off the Palestinian Authority no matter who is governing it and severely restricting humanitarian aid.

“For an AIPAC representative to say that I would ever vote to support Middle East terrorists over the interests of my country will never be tolerated by me or the families I serve,” McCollum wrote in a letter to Howard Kohr, AIPAC’s executive director that was republished in the New York Review of Books."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1256505

she has been re-elected since then in 2006,2008, and 2010

eta she was also one of the 'Congressional 54' if you remember that

[Jefferson23]

21. Thanks, I recall now, I did not remember who your congresswoman was..wasn't

sure who you were talking about.

Good for her btw.

[King_David]

22. must be the Jewish Lobby ?

The Christian right do not vote democrat.

Or maybe its the will of the American people ;)

[azurnoir]

23. Oh is that what you call AIPAC I'll have to remember that

but calling AIPAC by its proper name which is AIPAC will do just fine for me

[King_David]

24. Nope it is the will of the American people nt

[azurnoir]

25. so its the will of the American people to call AIPAC the Jewish Lobby I see

now will you say I am changing the subject?

[King_David]

27. You really do have problems following nt

[azurnoir]

29. no not at all but it does depend on who's leading and where n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

28. It'd help if you read the article...

'Washington welcomed Israel's decision, a statement issued by State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland read: "We welcome the Israeli government's announcement today expressing readiness to resume negotiations with the Palestinians, as called for by the Quartet. The Palestinians expressed support for the Quartet approach on September 29.'

[Jefferson23]

6. Settlement construction still major obstacle to peace (Haaretz Editorial )

The issue of construction in the settlements continues to be a major obstacle in the peace process.

In the midst of the American and Israeli diplomatic campaign to attain a majority in the UN Security Council against the unilateral Palestinian application for statehood, the Regional Planning and Building Council in Jerusalem approved construction of 1,100 apartments on the southern slopes of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, which is over the Green Line.

The unilateral decision was made while the Quartet was waiting for the parties' response to its new initiative on negotiations, which is intended to save the two-state solution and prevent another outbreak of violence.

The issue of construction in the settlements continues to be a major obstacle in the peace process. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has announced that a hiatus on such construction is a condition to renewing negotiations. As far as the Palestinians are concerned, the issue of sovereignty in East Jerusalem is to be clarified in permanent-status talks. The international community, including the United States, does not recognize the application of Israeli law and administration to East Jerusalem. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton joined the Palestinian protest against the decision to expand Gilo. The Quartet warned that Israel's move endangers its efforts to achieve peace.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the criticism, saying that Gilo is not a settlement, but rather a Jerusalem neighborhood five minutes from the center of the capital. He noted that all Israeli governments built in such neighborhoods. Indeed, successive Israeli governments built thousands of apartments in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and also poured billions of shekels into the establishment of settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

This shortsighted policy is one of the obstacles to the establishment of two states based on the 1967 borders.

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/settlement-construction-still-major-obstacle-to-peace-1.387595

[Jefferson23]

11. United States Opposes Preconditions to Peace Talks (AIPAC)

Washington is opposed to a settlement building freeze as a precondition for the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said Tuesday, September 27, The Jerusalem Post reported. “The U.S. has had the same policy for the past 40 years – against building settlements in the West Bank,” Ambassador Shapiro said. However, he stressed that the U.S. believes that direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, without preconditions, are the only way to resolve the conflict. The ambassador described President Obama as an extraordinarily good friend to Israel and said that “we are on the same page” and “working very closely together” on the Iranian nuclear threat. Referring to the President’s U.N. speech last week, he said that “Obama spoke in very moving terms about our understanding of the stress Israel faces and our understanding of Israel’s security concerns.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Panetta to Visit Israel




Palestinian Unity Deal Undermines Peace Prospects

(PDF)

http://www.aipac.org/en/in-the-news?newsid={9CB739C1-C513-420E-8457-7AF3EB59211C}

[Jefferson23]

8. Planned Housing Units Put Israel on Defensive

Israel's allies did not react positively to the news that 1,100 new housing units will be going up in East Jerusalem. Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to play down the importance of the development. But the incident shows that Israel and its international partners are not on the same page.

With Rosh Hashana approaching, even the bureaucrats should have already headed home long ago. In Israel, the Jewish new year celebration is one of the most important holidays, a time when panicked housewives rush to supermarkets only to wait in endless lines. The hoarding continues right up until the very last minute before Israel falls into a three-day holiday coma.


But, on Wednesday afternoon, officials were still working under high pressure in the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, trying to defuse the international uproar over the planned building of a new settlement in Jerusalem. "The prime minister is worried about how the decision to build more housing units will be portrayed around the world," said a senior adviser tasked with making the rounds with foreign journalists.

Diplomatic channels have been used, the adviser said, "to explain to the world that Israel is not damaging the peace process." The building in Jerusalem does not contradict "our desire for negotiations in any way," he continued.

Still, Benjamin Netanyahu's strategy of explaining things -- based on continued insistence that Israel doesn't make mistakes -- only illustrates how far removed Israel's views are from those of the rest of the world.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,789072,00.html

[shaayecanaan]

16. Israel demands "adjustment" of Quartet Mideast Peace Plan

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-to-demand-adjustment-of-quartet-mideast-peace-plan-official-says-1.387736

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Sunday that he welcomed "the Quartet's call for direct negotiations between the parties without preconditions," the premier intends to present a list of qualifications to the Quartet's statement on a resumption of Mideast talks that in effect enfeeble that statement.

[Jefferson23]

17. Gee, I can't imagine what's given him such a boost of confidence of late. n/t