Palestinians Say Peace Talks Face Collapse over Settlement Expansion
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Middle East peace talks could "collapse" due to continuing Israeli settlement expansion, a senior Palestinian official warned Tuesday, on the eve of the scheduled resumption of the fragile process.
"Settlement expansion goes against the U.S. administration's pledges and threatens to cause the negotiations' collapse," Yasser Abed Rabbo told Agence France Presse.
The comments came after Israeli authorities approved the construction of a total of more than 2,000 settlement units in east Jerusalem and the West Bank in the days leading up to Wednesday's scheduled new round of direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The approval on Sunday of 793 settlement housing units in annexed east Jerusalem and 394 elsewhere in the West Bank -- followed by Tuesday's separate announcement of a further 942 in east Jerusalem -- hiked up tension ahead of the meeting of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
"This settlement expansion is unprecedented," Abed Rabbo said. "It threatens to make talks fail even before they've started."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during a visit to Colombia on Monday urged the Palestinians "not to react adversely" to the weekend Israeli settlement announcement.
Kerry, who took the lead in securing last month's resumption of peace talks after a three-year hiatus, stressed the need for the two sides to return to the negotiating table as planned on Wednesday in Jerusalem.
The last peace talks broke down in 2010 on the issue of settlement building.
13 August 2013, 16:20
12
37 years ago, thousands of palestinian civilians were killed in Tal al Zaatar by Hafez al Assad's and Bechir Gemayel's forces, may they both burn in hell...
13 August 2013, 16:25
03
It is really outrageous and a terrible show of bad faith on the part of the Israelis that they would approve an unprecedented amount of housing starts now as peace talks are being launched.
Either Netanyahu is trying to torpedo the entire effort, or he is testing the Palestinians to see if they really want to do this. If it is a test, then it is crossing the line into slapping the Palestinians in the face and in the Middle East, you just don't do that expecting that the other side will turn the other cheek. It doesn't happen.
What is required for a serious effort to reach agreement is for each side to treat each other with mutual respect and equal respect. The asymetrical nature of the Israelis and Palestinians with the Israelis flaunting their short term advantage is an outrage.
13 August 2013, 16:32
02
However, what the Isaelis fail to respect and they fail at their own peril, is that long term, Israel is a losing proposition in that part of the world. The demographics are against them. Their use of water in a semi-arid land is against them. The Palestinian fertility rate will overcome them and their voracious use of scarce water resources will undo them.
There is a window between now and 2020 when the Palestinians may go for a 2 state solution, but after that, the demographics will catch them, and in the land between the sea and the river, the Jewish population will dip below 50%.
13 August 2013, 19:48
20
The Palestinians are just looking for an excuse to halt the talks. The very fact that just today a leading politician there claimed that even if the talks fail, Israel will have to release all the prisoners it promised.
They know that even if they cause the talks to be halted, the Arab world and quite a lot of the non-aligned countries will automatically blame Israel, so why should they worry. They'll use it as an excuse to go once again to the UN.
In order for the talks to restart Israeli agreed to release over 100 terrorist prisoners, what did the Palestinians agree in return - at the least nothing, at the most a breakdown of the talks.
13 August 2013, 20:06
00
Palestinian leadership was never interested in peace. Why ? Think MONEY i.e. International aid.
13 August 2013, 21:04
01
And Israel gave them a damn good excuse. Sorry phillipo, I say it is the opposite, Israel is doing its best to torpedo the talks, their tactic is do unilateral decision on settlements and this gives Israel a win/win scenario and a lose/lose for the Palestinians. Power corrupts, we see it with HA and with Israel and with every dictator in the Middle East.
