- Title: WEST BANK: West Bank hosts festival to promote Mideast peace talks
- Date: 2nd September 2013
- Summary: BEIT JALA, WEST BANK (AUGUST 30, 2013) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE DRESSED IN COLOURFUL CLOTHES AND DANCING DURING INTERNATIONAL PEACE FESTIVAL IN BEIT JALA VARIOUS OF BAND DANCING AT FESTIVAL MORE OF PEOPLE DANCING AT FESTIVAL MORE OF FESTIVAL MORE OF PEOPLE AT FESTIVAL
- Embargoed: 17th September 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: West bank
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Topics: International Relations,Arts,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA563EV4YF3U3YWNJR2DH6UG9J
- Story Text: Hundreds of Palestinians, Israelis and foreign visitors visited the West Bank city of Beit Jala on Friday (August 30) to celebrate the international festival for peace.
Dressed in colourful costumes, the crowd sang and danced as they marched through the streets.
Attended by delegates and mayors from France, Germany, South Korea and Czech Republic, the festival was organised with the full backing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Beit Jala mayor Nael Salman said the festival seeks to raise international awareness about the Palestinian cause.
"This is the Beit Jala International festival for peace. It aims to encourage or call the international community, with all its governments and countries, to support the Palestinian people to get their fair and legitimate rights, the right to self determination and to have an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital," said Salman.
Peace talks resumed in July after a three-year stalemate caused by Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in 1967 which Palestinians seek for a state along with the Gaza Strip.
Neither party has expressed much optimism for a major breakthrough and the negotiators have met largely in secret, alternating between Israeli and Palestinian locations.
Ofer Bronchtein, president of International Forum for Peace, said that the new generation, rather than politicians, was showing more willingness to promote peace between the two countries.
"This is an example that the Palestinian people want peace, this is an example that the young generation of Palestinian people want peace. So even if the political leaders are not always as encouraged to go forward you, the young people, the people of Beit Jala, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have to push the leaders to go into the right direction. I am very optimistic, the peace negotiations started few weeks ago, Dr. Saeb Erikat and minister Tzipi Livni meet very often," said Bronchtein.
During the talks, Israel's lead negotiator, Tzipi Livni, said the parties "need to build confidence" after what she called an encouraging start in Washington, and disputed a Palestinian demand to focus first on agreeing the frontiers of an independent state.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, who is close to Abbas, forecast "huge difficulties" for the talks begun after intense diplomacy by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Abed Rabbo, speaking on Voice of Palestine radio, cited Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and said any further building there would scupper the negotiations.
One of the Palestinians attending the festival was Jessica Musalam.
She said her participation in the festival comes from a desire to spread more awareness about the Palestinian cause.
"The peace festival means a lot to us in Beit Jala and as Palestinians, it brings us together to remind the world about our cause and to show that we still exist."
Previous peace talks collapsed in 2010 over settlement building in the West Bank, which Palestinians see as grabbing land they want for a state that would include the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, all territories captured by Israel in 1967.
Decades of peace negotiations sponsored by the United States, Israel's main ally, have failed to resolve the conflict. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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