Arab League Secretary-general Amr Moussa announced after an emergency meeting Wednesday 10 March that Palestine is withdrawing from indirect talks with Israel. Moussa reportedly had been phoned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said that given Israel’s announcement that it will build 1,600 new settler homes, his government cannot participate in talks. Al Jazeera quotes Moussa as saying “The Palestinian president decided he will not enter into those negotiations now . . . the Palestinian side is not ready to negotiate under the present circumstances.” Al Jazeera interviewed US Vice-president Joe Biden, who is in the region to encourage the talks, which were announced Sunday, just two days before the Israeli announcement about the planned new West Bank construction. Biden told Al Jazeera that “Everyone knows the Palestinians deserve an independent state, the Israelis deserve an independent and secure state and for those kinds of actions to occur when there’s more agreement than disagreement is just destabilising.”
Israel has apologized for the timing of the announcement, and it appears that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was unaware the announcement would be made.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, CBS News commentary, CNN, Jerusalem Post, Times, UK
Settlement-building in the occupied West Bank will be halted for 10 months, but not in East Jerusalem, and the construction of schools, synagogues and community centres will continue as part of its “natural growth” doctrine, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced 26 November. The news was welcomed by former US Senator George Mitchell, the US special envoy for the Middle East, who called it “significant.” President Barack Obama’s administration has urged Israel to respect its commitments under the 2003 roadmap to peace in the Middle East.
Palestine’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, dismissed the Israeli move as “mere propaganda” and said that it had more to do with appeasing the USA than making peace with the Palestinians.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, Jerusalem Post, New York Times, US State Department briefing
US President Barack Obama will hold separate meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in New York, USA, before meeting them together Tuesday 22 September, in an effort to jump-start talks that have stalled largely because of Palestinian intransigence in the face of continued Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
None of the three sides expect much to come out of the meetings, say observers, who note that Obama is keen to have something to show leading up to the UN General Assembly meetings and the subsequent G-20 meetings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Al-Jazeera, Jerusalem Post, New York Times
