ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/SETTLEMENTS Netanyahu proposes Palestine talks begin with settlements status

Record ID: 165446

  • Title: ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/SETTLEMENTS Netanyahu proposes Palestine talks begin with settlements status
  • Date: 26th May 2015
  • Summary: MAA'LE EDUMIM SETTLEMENT, WEST BANK (FILE) (REUTERS) WIDE OF MA'ALE EDUMIM SETTLEMENT ISRAELI FLAG FLYING IN MA'ALE EDUMIM HOUSE YARD EFRAT SETTLEMENT, WEST BANK (FILE) (REUTERS) ISRAELI FLAG OVER EFRAT LOCAL COUNCIL BUILDING EFRAT RESIDENTS WALKING TWO WOMEN PRAYING VARIOUS OF EFRAT SETTLEMENT FROM A DISTANCE
  • Embargoed: 10th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: West bank
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABPGHY4OFXP9060WY6E8SSN2ZV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed resuming land-for-peace talks with the Palestinians but with the initial focus on defining areas where Israel could expand Jewish settlement, an Israeli official said on Tuesday (May 26).
    Asked about Netanyahu's position, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said settlement activity must stop and all core issues of the conflict with Israel must be addressed simultaneously.
    Peace talks collapsed in April 2014 over Israeli settlement-building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Palestinians seek for a state, and after Abbas angered Israel by reaching a unity deal with Hamas Islamists who run Gaza.
    In a meeting in Jerusalem last week, Netanyahu told Federica Mogherini, the European Union's foreign policy chief, it was clear that some of the land Israel captured in a 1967 war would remain in its hands while other parts would be under Palestinian control, the Israeli official said.
    "Therefore negotiations should be resumed in order to define those areas in which we can build," the official said, quoting Netanyahu. The remarks were first reported in the left-wing Haaretz newspaper.
    Ahead of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Israel's energy and infrastructure minister, Yuval Steinitz, said that "The settlement blocks will be a part of the state of Israel in any future agreement, if and when there will be one."
    With the inauguration two weeks ago of his new right-wing government after an election victory in March, Netanyahu faces U.S. and EU calls to re-engage with the Palestinians in negotiations and the prospect of stronger pressure to curb what most countries see as illegal settlement construction.
    Western diplomats have said Netanyahu - who raised international concern by saying on the eve of the election that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch - will now be watched closely over his settlement policy.
    If peace talks were to resume, reaching understandings on settlements could allow Israel to keep construction going in agreed enclaves, without drawing the wrath of Israel's Western allies, and appease Netanyahu's pro-settler coalition partners.
    But a Palestine Liberation Organization leader rejected the idea.
    "I think that what Netanyahu said regarding the issue of negotiations on what is called the settlement blocks constructed on lands of the Palestinian state is totally unacceptable. We see all the settlements constructed on lands of the Palestinian state which were occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem the capital, as illegitimate and illegal. There are decisions by the international Security Council and the United Nations assembly emphasizing the illegitimacy of settlements and demanding the removal of all the settlements constructed from the lands of the Palestinian state," Wassel Abu Youssef said in Ramallah.
    A non-Israeli official familiar with the substance of the meeting with Mogherini said Netanyahu's proposal showed some change in his position, but not enough to restart peace talks.
    "Up until now, Netanyahu has refused to put any maps on the table, so in that respect it was quite substantial. He was talking about borders in one way or another, even if it was based around the acceptance of existing settlement blocs," the official said.
    Another official described Netanyahu's proposal as creating "the illusion of progress".
    "Netanyahu was trying to show that he is committed to peace and ready for negotiations, but he knows the Palestinians would never agree to begin on this basis," the official said.
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