ISRAEL: Are Palestinians and Israelis ready to talk face to face?

Raising hopes that direct peace talks might soon be renewed, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad met Monday in Jerusalem with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the first high-level meeting since February.

Fayyad said in a statement that they discussed “a number of vital and key issues as well as Israeli violations of the rights of our people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including Jerusalem.”

He said the discussion focused on quick lifting of the blockade on Gaza as well as implementation of the crossings and movement agreement of 2005, including opening the free passage between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, opening all the crossings into Gaza with Palestinian Authority and European supervision on these crossings.

Regarding Jerusalem, Fayyad said he emphasized total halt to settlement activities, home demolition as well as canceling the deportation order against three Hamas lawmakers and a former minister.

Regarding the West Bank, he called for an end to Israeli military incursions into Palestinian cities and allowing deployment of Palestinian security forces in “all Palestinian population centers outside the cities.” This means stationing Palestinian security units in so-called Areas B, which are, according to the Oslo accords, under Israeli military control.

Fayyad also demanded allowing Palestinian investment in Areas C, which compose most of the West Bank and are under full Israeli control. The Palestinian Authority has plans to build a couple of cities in the Jordan Valley, which is under full Israeli control.

The two also discussed release of Palestinian prisoners, mainly those who have served long sentences.

Fayyad said, “Israel’s commitment to these vital and key issues and enforcing them on the ground will add credibility to the peace process and international efforts to advance and implement it, particularly ending the occupation of the Palestinian land since 1967 and allowing our people the right to self-determination and establishing their independent state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital.”

He said that “success of this requires active and tangible international intervention and willingness to be directly responsible for ending the occupation and not leaving Israel, the occupying power, to decide this.”

The Islamist Hamas movement, the Palestinian Authority’s main rival, has condemned the meeting. Hamas said in a statement Monday night that the meeting was “the result of U.S. pressure to improve the image of Israel and to save it after the Freedom Flotilla crime.” It said the meeting was part of the “security coordination with the occupation force and a new cover for the crimes of the occupiers against our Palestinian people under siege in the Gaza Strip for four years.”

It said, “This meeting does not represent or commit the Palestinian people to anything.”

-- Maher Abukhater in Ramallah

Comments

[100octane]

You're getting carried away, ABG. But full marks for speaking like a dedicated member of the army of cyberscribblers recruited and trained by the Propaganda Unit in Tel Aviv, which is no respecter of international law or human rights.

"Eternal strife over a small stretch of land set aside for Jewish autonomy." The 56% of mandated Palestine handed to the Jews by the UN partition wasn't enough, they want everything from the Nile to the Euphrates.

"Why can't the Palestinian people of Gaza move to another Arab country?" Why should the indigenous population, including Christians, move out of the way of immigrants?

"What is keeping them from moving to Alexandria or Riyadh or even Amman or Damascus?" Shows how little you understand. The Israelis won't let them out even if they wanted to go.

Talking of the British mandate, the original plan in 1922 was for a Jewish homeland "within" Palestine. Jews moving in would have Palestinian citizenship and no hand in running the country, although they would contribute to its general development. That's how it would have been if the US hadn't meddled and created a powder-keg.

[ABG]

Are you serious, 100octane? You don't understand how the rest of the Arabia, commonly known as the Arab League and financially known as OPEC, has an effect on the Palestinians hope for peace?

Start with how Jordan was created out of 74% of the British Mandate of Palestine. Mix in how the most of the Arabian states gained their national interests with the demise of the Ottoman Empire. Shake in a little caste system etiquette that exiled most Jewish Arabs from their countries of origin (like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Qatar, Morroco) and voila, you get the confusing madness of the current situation in the Middle East. Now take this concoction and add constant war and battles and terror attacks. Bake in the oven for 62 years and, there you have it. Eternal strife over a small stretch of land set aside for Jewish autonomy.

Tell me, Octane, why can't the Palestinian people of Gaza move to another Arab country? If they live in an "open prison" what is keeping them from moving to Alexandria or Riyadh or even Amman or Damascus? Could it be the politics of every Arab state in the region, who just so happen to be run by monarchies and/or dictators, and that their state run media simply uses the "Zionist entity" aka Israel as a distraction?

[100octane]

ABG, what have the other Arab states got to do with "negotiations" between Israel and the Palestinians?

Anyway, which state of Israel would you like the Palestinians to recognise? Israel within the 1947 partition borders (by UN decree) with Jerusalem an international city, which is the basis on which the Jews accepted statehood? Israel within the 1949 armistice Green Line (so-called pre-1967) borders? Or present-day Israel still in occupation and with no fixed borders and ever-expanding, seizing/confiscating any land or water they fancy?

An itty-bitty little factoid you seem to have missed is that Hamas have agreed to recognise Israel within its pre-1967 borders, which is the international community's position also. All Israel has to do is end the illegal occupation and get back behind its pre-1967 borders as required by numerous UN resolutions. The law isn't negotiable, although it seems Israelis would like to re-write it to suit their expansionist case.

[ABG]

You are funny, 100octane, because apparently the Arabs have never accepted the rights of the State of Israel to exist. You know, by UN decree, in 1947.

Israel bashers keep missing this itty-bitty little factoid that the Muslim states in the region refuse to accept Israel's right to exist... and, of course, it's all Israel's fault.

Because the world is full of really intelligent people. Like 100octane.

[100octane]

Ludicrous when one party is holding a gun to the other's head, literally. What is there to "negotiate"? Rulings have already been made. There should be no negotiations until Israel fully complies with international law and outstanding UN resolutions. Then they can sit down as equals and discuss any remaining issues.