:icon_sadangel2: Palestine Peace a dream?

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Netanyahu draws Arab anger for setting peace terms
Mohammed Mar’i I Arab News


RAMALLAH, West Bank: Arabs decried Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Sunday outlining his vision of a Palestinian state as unacceptable while the United States and Europe gave their guarded approval of his accepting the idea of two states.

“The vision which the Israeli prime minister presented ... is flawed and lacks many elements and therefore requires substantial development to meet the level of international and Arab efforts for a just, permanent and comprehensive Middle East peace,” an Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that a call to recognize Israel as a Jewish state “increases the complexity of the matter (of achieving peace) and aborts the chance for peace.” In his speech at Bar-Ilan University, Netanyahu said Palestinians must recognize the Jewish nature of the state of Israel.

He also said Israel would accept a Palestinian state only if it is completely demilitarized. He ruled out the resettlement of Palestinian refugees within the borders of Israel and a halt to settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Netanyahu’s speech set further preconditions for negotiations and, in effect, announced Israel’s intention to unilaterally dictate a solution, rather than negotiate peace. “Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about negotiations, but left us with nothing to negotiate as he systematically took nearly every permanent status issue off the table. Nor did he accept a Palestinian state; instead, he announced a series of conditions and qualifications that render a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state impossible,” Erekat said.

Speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, former US President Jimmy Carter said Netanyahu has placed several obstacles on the road to peace. “He insists on settlement expansion and demands that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state even though 20 percent of Israel’s citizens are not Jewish.”

The Palestinian public also slammed the speech. Trader Salam Khatib said that a “Palestinian state must be equal to Israel in every respect: land, border, army, nuclear capability and sea border. Most importantly, all refugees must return to their stolen homes in Palestine of 1948.”

Ahmed Salim, a Palestinian refugee, said that Netanyahu “can wait one thousand years to find one single Palestinian who accepts his plan.”

Yousef Ali, a student at An Najah University at Nablus, said Netanyahu’s speech should be an eye-opener for Arab governments, which should cancel their initiative and stop making compromises.

But the White House termed the address “an important step forward” for implementing President Barack Obama’s peace vision. The European Union described the speech as “a step in the right direction” but said it was not enough to raise EU-Israeli ties to a higher level. Nihad Awad, national executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that Netanyahu rejected Obama’s clear demand that Israel stop building illegal settlements.

“By placing more roadblocks in the path of peace, Netanyahu is only seeking to buy more time to expand the settlements and to strengthen Israel’s stranglehold on the Palestinian people,” Awad added.

Thomas R. Mattair, author and Mideast consultant based in Washington, D.C., said that although Netanyahu has finally said that Israel will be willing to negotiate for a Palestinian state, he has attached so many conditions that it is not attractive to Palestinians.

Ori Nir, spokesperson at Americans for Peace Now, a Washington-based American Jewish organization that advocates peace in the Middle East, said: “The importance of Netanyahu’s speech — the acceptance of a Palestinian state living next to Israel in peace and security — was unfortunately shrouded by layers of hollow preconditions, anachronistic proscriptions and negotiations nonstarters.

“Netanyahu’s tone, unfortunately, was condescending and grudging rather than forthcoming. It lacked in vision and it did not meet the minimal requirement for creating the circumstances in which negotiations can be held in earnest. It is now up to the Obama administration to follow up with Netanyahu and make sure that his acceptance of the two-state principle does not drown in the ocean of conditions that Netanyahu raised.” Analyzing Netanyahu’s character, Jim Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, said: “I’ve debated him before, and he has no concept of the truth, and words mean nothing to him. He will say he’s ready to talk with no preconditions, but then will proceed to define all sorts of preconditions regarding Jerusalem.

“He’s a person who has gotten away with this kind of behavior throughout his political career. But I don’t think he will get away with this with President Obama, because Obama has said he wants an outcome, and Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has said this is not a situation where they’re going to roll over to protect Netanyahu.”

— With input from Barbara Ferguson from Washington
ArabNews

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Israeli PM concedes little in speech

By Jeremy Bowen
BBC Middle East Editor

Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu delivering his speech on 14/6/09
Washington welcomed Netanyahu's speech, but is unlikely to concede on settlement natural growth

The fact that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu felt it necessary to make a speech at all about a Palestinian state shows that American pressure works.

US President Barack Obama has taken every opportunity he can to restate his view that the only chance of Middle Eastern peace lies with the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Had Mr Netanyahu been prepared to concede the principle of some form of statehood for Palestinians after the Israeli elections in February he might have emerged with a centre-right coalition rather than one dominated by the hard right.

But he did not feel he had to until the Americans indicated he should.

The Israeli prime minister's body language suggested that he was doing it under diplomatic duress.

One Israeli journalist observed that he looked like someone vomiting up the words "Palestinian state".

That was because the idea, however hedged around with conditions, is anathema to his ideology.

Mr Netanyahu, who understands communication via the TV camera, might also have chosen to emphasise a certain distaste for what he was doing, to send a message to his own supporters that he did not like it, and he was going to make sure that they would be talking about Israel's vision of Palestinian independence, and not the Palestinians' own.

Reaction to speech

The speech was billed as an answer to President Obama's in Cairo.

But Mr Netanyahu used a very different tone to the new and generous one adopted by President Obama.


Mr Netanyahu's starting point is a description of a state without real sovereignty
Netanyahu speech - key excerpts
Palestinians dismiss Israel plan

The Israeli prime minister selected a key that is squarely in the tradition of the conflict, which would be recognised by his supporters without alarming them too much.

Creating a Palestinian state is the only real big idea that the Americans and their allies have for ending almost a century of conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Previous Israeli prime ministers have accepted it.

By taking part in the Oslo peace process in the 1990s, again with public displays of reluctance, Mr Netanyahu also bought into the principle. So it was unlikely that he would be able to resist American pressure for long.

The attitude in Washington seems to be that you have to start from somewhere.

The first response of the White House was to welcome what he said, without going into the way he said it or the conditions he laid down, which incidentally are not new.

Even though the Palestinians have responded angrily to what was said, they must have guessed that Mr Netanyahu was never going to make a speech that would conform to their view of the future.

Even so, once you move beyond the fact that the Israel's prime minister has used the words Palestinian state, there was not much in the speech to encourage those people who still dream of negotiations leading to peace.

It does not even get things back to where they were under Ehud Olmert, the previous prime minister.

Not only did he call for a Palestinian state, Mr Olmert also said Israel needed to pull out of "almost all" of the occupied territories.

Next US moves?

Mr Netanyahu's starting point is a description of a state without real sovereignty.

There was no mention of the Arab peace initiative, which offers peace and recognition in return for full withdrawal from occupied territory and a just solution for refugees.

Perhaps most important for his audience in Washington, Mr Netanyahu has not moved an inch on President Obama's request that Israel stop all building in the settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Under international law it is illegal for an occupier to settle its people on the land it has taken.

Mr Netanyahu would like some give and take on settlements.

He has given a bit on a Palestinian state. He would like Washington to let him take something on settlements, which most of his coalition believes are just, necessary and entirely legal.

But it is unlikely that President Obama will give up on settlements.

If he did, he would forfeit the goodwill he has been building up among Arabs and undermine one of his main objectives, which is to rebuild America's power to persuade in the Middle East.

Letting the Israeli government off the hook on settlements would also, correctly, look like a defeat.

President Obama and his advisers will now be pondering their next moves.

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The far-right Israeli prime minister's highly anticipated policy address reiterates Tel Aviv's stance that any future Palestinian state should be denied the right to have military forces.

Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Sunday speech met the two weeks deadline set by US president Barack Obama, also said that the Palestinians should "recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people."

Israel has been at loggerheads with the United States over a number of issues namely, Netanyahu's resistance to Obama calls for a two-state solution and Tel Aviv's defiance of Washington, which urges an immediate halt to all settlement activities.

As many analysts had earlier predicted, Netanyahu made yet another attempt to further stall the Palestinian question.

"The Palestinian territory will be without arms, will not control air space [and] will not be able to have arms entry," Netanyahu said, echoing Tel Aviv's earlier stance.

"There is a need to allow the residents to live normal lives... the settlers are not our enemies," he said, ruling out a complete stop to settlement activities in the occupied West Bank in defiance of the Obama administration.

Another controversial matter in the far-right Likud leader's speech was the issue of millions of Palestinian refugees, who are currently living under severe conditions in refugee camps around the world.

Netanyahu said Palestinians must recognize Israel as a 'Jewish state'. An influx of refugees would be deemed discriminatory to the Jewish nature of Israel's demographic feature and thus "the refugee problem must be solved" outside Israel, he said.

The idea of a 'Jewish state' was flatly rejected by acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas's spokesman Nabil abu Rudeina said that such a condition 'torpedoes all peace initiatives in the region'.

"It hobbles all efforts to save the peace process, in a clear defiance of the US administration", he said.

Also, shortly after the speech, the Islamic Hamas movement -- the democratically-elected ruler of the Gaza Strip -- said that Netanyahu's speech reflected a 'racist and extremist ideology'.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said the address "aims at transforming the Palestinian people into a tool to protect the occupation."

FTP/MMN

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CAIRO: EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana yesterday called on Israel to seek security through peace while warning that future talks with the European Union would depend on “Israel’s behavior.” “What’s important is to work to convince Israel that its security will be better guaranteed with peace and I think that President Obama clearly explained this in his speech and when he met the Israeli prime minister is Washington,” Solana told journalists in Cairo.

US President Barack Obama has been seeking to restart the stalled peace process since taking office in January, with his envoy George Mitchell having just toured the region and reaffirmed US support for a two-state solution.

“There is currently an identical approach shared by us and the new US administration concerning the Middle East’s problems and the way to act to resolve these problems,” Solana said following talks with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit.

Political dialogue between the EU and Israel would continue, Solana added, “but it depends on Israel’s behavior.” Solana has previously hailed a speech by Obama in Cairo on June 4 as opening a “new page” in relations with the Arab-Muslim world and resolving the Middle East conflict.

For his part, Abu Gheit said a comprehensive proposal is required to persuade both the Palestinians and Israelis to start the negotiations under international sponsorship, otherwise “we will see a 10-20 years setback.” ¬
Source: Arab News

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Former US president Jimmy Carter expresses extreme dismay over the damage inflicted by Israeli forces using state-of-the-art US made weaponry on Gaza.

While touring the war-ravaged strip, Carter said Tuesday that he was deeply concerned about the damage Israeli war planes deliberately inflicted on the people of Gaza using US bombs.

"I have to hold back tears when I see the deliberate destruction that has been wracked against your people," Carter said.

Carter also surveyed a school destroyed during Israel's Christmas war on the Coastal sliver, decrying the fact that it had been "deliberately destroyed by bombs from F16s made in my country."

"I feel partially responsible for this as must all Americans and Israelis," he added.

Tel Aviv waged war on Gaza on December 27. Three weeks of ensuing airstrikes and a ground incursion left nearly 1,350 Palestinians -- at least 1,100 of whom were civilians -- dead and nearly 5,450 others injured.

The onslaught cost the Palestinian economy at least $1.6 billion, destroying some 4,000 residential buildings and damaging 16,000 other homes.

Since June 2007, when Israel imposed a blockade on the territory home to 1.5 million people, no raw material have entered Gaza, stalling any attempt to rebuild the strip.

"The construction sector is totally paralyzed. 3,500 businesses have closed down and over 75,000 workers, who support half a million dependants, have lost their jobs," Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said on its website.

Source: Press TV

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An aide to acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas has urged the world powers to isolate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his recent speech.

Netanyahu in a major policy speech in Tel Aviv on Sunday unveiled tough terms for a Middle East peace accord, including conditions for establishment of a Palestinian state.

The Israeli prime minister has declared that any Palestinian state should be demilitarized.

He also failed to heed a call by the US President Barack Obama to halt the expansion of the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

"The international community should confront this policy, through which Netanyahu wants to kill off any chance for peace," Abbas adviser Yasser Abed Rabbo told Reuters.

"They must isolate and confront this policy which Netanyahu is adopting and exert pressure on him so that he adheres to international legitimacy and the road map," he said, referring to a US-sponsored 2003 peace plan.

Netanyahu has also pledged to keep all of Jerusalem (Al-Quds) as Israel's capital, defying Palestinians' claim on the city.

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UN Middle East Envoy Tony Blair has made a second visit to the Gaza Strip, as the territory nearly six months after the Israeli war on the Palestinian sliver.

During his Monday visit, the former British prime minister highlighted what he said were "genuine humanitarian concerns" in the Palestinian territory and urged the easing of the nearly two-year-long Israeli blockade on the impoverished strip.

"I have returned to Gaza today to hear directly from local Palestinians about the tough situation they continue to face here," he said.

He also called for a fast repair of infrastructure and homes in the coastal strip so that "people can believe that there is a prospect for that shared future of two states living side by side in peace".

Blair last visited the Gaza -- as an international Middle East Quartet envoy -- in June 2007, after the democratically-elected government of Hamas took power in the Strip.

Israel responded by slapping a punishing blockade on the densely-populated coastal strip home to 1.5 million people.

On December 2008, the humanitarian situation in Gaza worsened after Israel waged a devastating war on the enclave, killing over 1,400 Palestinians -- many of them women and children.

Human rights groups have slammed the on-going blockade as collective punishment of the territory where the vast majority of the population depends on foreign aid for survival.

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Conditions set by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the creation of a Palestinian state keeps European Union at bay from upgrading ties with Tel Aviv.

Following Netanyahu's foreign policy speech on Sunday, European Union officials said Monday that they would delay any improvement in relations with Tel Aviv since the Israeli government has ignored repeated EU demands for a freeze in settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and lifting the deadly Gaza blockade.

On Sunday, the far-right Israeli prime minister offered his support for a Palestinian statehood for the first time but only if it is demilitarized and if Palestinians accept Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinians have rejected the conditions.

However, the EU -- supporting a two-state solution which calls for a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace -- said that Netanyahu's comments were "a step in the right direction", but not enough to increase relations with Israel to a higher level.

EU has urged Tel Aviv to take more steps toward peace with Palestinians.

Upgrading Israeli-EU political, economic and trade relations has been under discussion since December, but it was shelved following Israeli's three-week war on Gaza which left over 1,400 Palestinians dead.

European foreign ministers will meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Luxembourg this week.

Palestinians have repeatedly said that they would resume the long stalled peace talks with Israel only after Tel Aviv shows commitment to the two-state solution and halts expanding settlements in the occupied Palestinian lands.

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On the last leg of his Middle East tour, former US president Jimmy Carter has called on Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya in the Gaza Strip.

In an attempt to coax Hamas toward the West, Carter on Tuesday criticized Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip and tried to convince and encourage Hamas leaders to accept the precondition that Western countries have set for ending their boycott of the Islamist party, which was democratically elected in 2006.

He said that the Palestinians are being treated “more like animals than human beings.”

Carter said that “all violence” against both Israelis and Palestinians should be brought to an end.

"This is holy land for us all and my hope is that we can have peace... all of us are children of Abraham," he said at a joint press conference with Haniya.

Carter also said that he handed over a letter from the parents of Gilad Shalit to Hamas.

Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, was captured by Hamas fighters in an Israeli cross-border raid almost three years ago, and still remains in custody.

Although traveling as a 'private citizen' and not a representative of the US government, Carter said he would report to Obama administration officials after returning to the United States.

Haniya in turn said Hamas supports the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories Israel has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.

However, most Palestinians still dream of eventually establishing an independent Palestinian state encompassing not only the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but also all of the land of Palestine upon which Israel has been built by Jewish immigrants.

"If there is a real plan to resolve the Palestinian question on the basis of the creation of a Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967 and with full sovereignty, we are in favor of it," Haniya said.

"We saw a new tone, a new language, and a new spirit in the official US rhetoric," he said referring to US President Barack Obama's June 4 speech in Cairo to the Muslim world.

FTP/ZAP/HGL

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US special envoy for the Middle East peace process George Mitchell is hopeful of a prompt resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.

In his first comprehensive briefing since beginning his Middle East mission almost five months ago, the former US Senate majority leader said he was encouraged by the progress he had observed.

"We're going to move as promptly as possible. And in my opening remarks, I said that we hope to conclude the discussions in which we are now engaged very soon. To me, it's a matter of weeks, not many months," Mitchell said on Tuesday.

Mitchell has been pressing a two-state solution under the 2003 international peace "road map," which requires Israel to halt its illegal settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.

He acknowledged the difficulty of the process, but expressed hope that President Obama's commitment would enhance the prospects of peace between Palestine and Israel, and that common interests are moving regional nations closer.

The remarks came as Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman prepares for first visit to the US where he will discuss Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposed "demilitarized" Palestinian state.

In a policy speech on Sunday, Netanyahu -- for the first time -- said his government would agree with the creation of a Palestinian homeland only if the world powers guaranteed it would be unarmed.

The hawkish prime minister, meanwhile, rejected US calls for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the Palestinian lands, including Israeli-termed "natural growth."

Mitchell said the Obama administration's position on Israel's settlements is unchanged. He said Israeli media reports of an agreement on his last Mideast trip with the expansion of settlements within their current boundaries were "highly inaccurate."

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