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Netanyahu Rejects Peace Talks Based on 1967 Borders
Prime ministers rebuffs Palestinian 'precondition' as talks with U.S. envoy George Mitchell end in failure.
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday rejected a Palestinian demand that direct negotiations be based on a statement by the Quartet confirming its position that the future Palestinian state will be based on the 1967 borders.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem August 8, 2010. (REUTERS/Oliver Weiken/Pool) Meeting in Jerusalem with U.S. envoy George Mitchell, Netanyahu
repeated his demand for the renewal of direct talks without
preconditions. Mitchell briefed Netanyahu on his meeting on Tuesday with
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and gave the prime
minister the Palestinian proposal.
According to Palestinian sources, Mitchell did not dismiss Abbas' proposal. Abbas is demanding a clear framework for the direct talks and an Israeli commitment to cease construction activity in the settlement during the negotiations.
The Quartet - the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia - issued the statement after a meeting in Moscow on March 19. It calls for 24 months of talks between Israel and the PA that would result in an agreement on the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The statement said that the founding of the Palestinian state would end the occupation that began in 1967. It also called on Israel to institute a total freeze of construction in West Bank settlements and to refrain from home demolitions in East Jerusalem. The declaration even went so far as to mention that the international community does not recognize Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem.
Senior officials in Jerusalem who are involved in the efforts to renew direct peace talks said yesterday that Abbas' latest formula was unacceptable to Netanyahu because it sought to impose preconditions that the Israeli public would oppose.
Mitchell told Netanyahu that Washington has not taken a position on the proposal yet, noting that his job was simply to present Abbas' offer to Israeli. The U.S. envoy told Netanyahu that Abbas indicated to him that if Israel were to accept the offer, he would be ready to enter direct talks immediately.
After Netanyahu's rejection, it appears that Mitchell's latest visit to the region has ended in failure.
According to Palestinian sources, the United States rejected two earlier proposals put forth by Abbas to jump-start direct talks. One called for U.S., Israeli and Palestinian officials to meet in order to reach agreement on a framework for direct talks. The other called for U.S. President Barack Obama to issue a statement spelling out the terms of the framework.
Palestinian journalists who met with Abbas this week said they came away with the impression that he is determined to move forward in negotiations with Israel but will not back down on long-established Palestinian positions. Despite international criticism of his refusal to begin negotiations, Abbas is insistent on an agreed framework for discussions prior to the start of direct talks.
An editorial in yesterday's New York Times urged Abbas to renew talks with Israel, warning him to avoid a clash with Obama, who is keen to see the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
In his meeting with Palestinian journalists Abbas urged them to meet with their Israeli colleagues, after the main journalists' union in the West Bank failed in its campaign to boycott all contacts with Israeli reporters. Abbas told the Palestinian reporters it was important for them to continue their dialogue with Israeli journalists.
24 Comments so far
Show AllDoes Netanyahu intend a VIABLE two state solution or a fig leaf pretend one that maintains the status quo?
The two-state solution has already been pissed away by Israel. The only way to go forward for peace is to wipe the slate clean and start over.
This entails De-Countrifying Israel and payment of Reparations to those who have been harmed by Zionism.
One is forced to wonder why this charade continues.
Israel obviously has no interest in making any kind of peace agreement whatsoever because doing so would impede the ethnic cleansing of whatever land whose resources they covet.
The Palestinians need to stick to their position or even adopt a tougher one. It will make no difference.
q
Agreed.
Quite right.
The US has been working hard all these years for a Munich style conference, a la Sudetenland, during which Abbas or another Palestinian stand-in would cede Palestinian land Israel seized in 1967. This assumed the US role would be to be the "impartial" judge who would decide how much of the loot the subway mugger had to return to the victim. The bluff of the white phosphorous supplying US has been called.
Netanyahu's number one - possibly his only real - concern is to hang on to his job. If he agreed to talks based on the 1967 borders, his coalition government would fall.
Right now that wouldn't be a bad thing, even if it were to lead to the election of an even more hard-line government under Avigdor Lieberman. With him in charge, distancing oneself from Israel would become much easier for western politicians.
I disagree.Netanyahu's number one concern is cleansing Palestine of the Palestinians and creating more "Lebenstraum" for an "Ethnically Pure Jewish Race" in those territories and in lands now belonging to Lebanon and Syria.
Lieberman has the same goals and the competition between the two is over who has the policies that will best achieve this.
I would not be surprised if he writes a semi-autobiographical book outlining his vision. He might well call it "my Struggle"
This s.o.b. should be an insane asylum or, better yet, in the Hague, answering questions 1) in an international investigation into his various governments' flagrant violations of international law and the war crimes of Israel over its 60-year existence and before; and 2) a second international inquiry into the events of 9/11.
'Netanyahu Rejects Peace Talks Based on 1967 Borders': Fine
Now it's time for the world to reject Israel in its current racist, lying, land-grabbing, double-dealing, world-meddling manifestation.
I've been hearing this crap my whole life and I'm sick of it.
Here, here. I'm with you, all the way.
I disagree with you, tiredoftrolls. The only way that the two-state solution with Jerusalem as a shared Capitol between the two states can be enforced is through an international conference by strict enforcement and monitoring of the pull-out of Israeli troops and right-wing settlers from West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. This would have to be through the European Union, the Arab world, the United States, the UN and Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and it should start....NOW, especially since the two-state solution is the ONLY safe, sane and sensible solution to this decades-old conflict.
You seem not to understand, independentminded, that Israel DOESN'T WANT a two-state solution and has done everything in its power to torpedo such an eventuality. The miracle of Oslo was that the Palestinians (in the form of Arafat) were actually willing to give up any claim to the 78% of their homeland seized and developed by Israel, just to have a little peace and quiet on their remaining 22%. But this was not good enough for Israel. Building for new settlements began even before the ink on the Oslo agreement had dried, and has continued and increased ever since.
The only solutions would be for the world (esp. the U.S. and Europe) to force Israel either:
1) to dismantle ALL settlements in the occupied territories and allow the Palestinians their measly 22%, at the risk of sparking a civil war within Israel between crazies and liberals, but allowing the Israelis to perpetuate the dubious illusion of their "Jewish state"; or
2) reform Israeli society from top to bottom, opening it up to all the inhabitants on its lands, within Israel proper and the West Bank and Gaza, giving every person the vote and allowing all citizens of all religions to practice in freedom and safety.
The only enlightened solution is the latter, as many, including the late Tony Judt have come to realize. There would be strife in such a hypothetical Israel/Palestine, perhaps even violence, but this would be a small price to pay for the justice that would be served.
Nice post.
"The only solutions would be for the world (esp. the U.S. and Europe) to force Israel..." –(clovis)
–Correct. The matter can only be resolved by force– culminating in an exigent military occupation of Israel, the destruction of the Israeli state apparatus and all military capability– in effect ending its existence as a criminal state and practitioner of state terror. It must be militarily castrated or excised as one would a cancerous tumor.There are no other options that would assume virtue, and certainly none that could deliver the justice that is mandated in situations of unconscionable criminality.
Only at that point can the stolen lands of the Palestinian people be recouped with justice and the right of return be granted, resulting in the repatriation of the indigenous peoples to their rightful homeland with the creation of a secular, universalist state.
Any 'negotiations' (an oxymoron, in and of itself) with Israel proceed on the false assumption that Israel has a right to legitimately exist; boycotts and international opprobrium and condemnation do not go far enough and would be endlessly circumvented by Zionist influence. To wit: There must be no negotiations whatsoever with Israel; the solution must be imposed by force and occupation.
Your point #2 seems to advocate the 'one state solution,' which again, is only viable with the destruction of Israel as we know it. That, is what I believe you meant when you justifiably say: "...this would be a small price to pay for the justice that would be served." I would only add here that this is the ONLY price that can or should be paid.
The preservation of Israel is not an option, for justice and the continued existence of the Jewish state are mutually exclusive and a contradiction in terms.
Only then can the work commence of rounding up and bringing to justice all the criminals of the Israeli state, similarly to what happened during the Nazi diaspora after WWII. As is obvious, the list would be a long one, and would rightfully extend deeply into the political and elite classes in the United States and elsewhere.
For Zionism, like Nazism before it, is a malefic plague and must be treated as such, lest humanity in general is brought down by it's intransigent nefariousness.
Only at that point can Jews resume being Jews, and assume their participation in the larger human project to which they have contributed so notably as a people. That is predicated only on the destruction and dismantling of Israel– and presumes changes in the United States, alas, all but tragically unimaginable.
Let the settlers stay in the Palestinian state if they're willing to live under that government and its conditions for staying. Most wouldn't be willing to stay then, but those that do would be a start towards a real reconciliation between peoples ...
As with all these reports, I add that the news is greeted with a yawn by the acquiescent American Jewish community.
I didn't take time to read this article since, to tell the truth, I didn't really expect Netanyahu to accept peace talks based on the 1967 borders. All anybody expects from that hateful character is more hate.
The sad fact is that the key to progress on this issue lies in the Oval Office, not in the West Bank or Jerusalem. As long as Rahm Emmanuel or his equivalent are the gatekeepers, no genuine peace proposal will get into the Oval Office. Also, George Mitchell was probably hired as "Middle East Special Envoy", because he is a doddering old fool, long past his prime and utterly unable to face a staredown from Natanyahu or Avigdor Lieberman. Mitchell is a career apparatchik from within or friendly with the Clinton clique; another reason for naming him. His job is not to convene successful negotiations, it is to mumble excuses when negotiations are cynically torpedoed as in this case. The US policy on Palestine is malign neglect. Expect nothing else.
In all possible versions of the one or two state solutions proposed above, each side would have to swallow hard and accept much that they are sworn never to accept. This would require real, pervasive threats from "the Quartet", including the US, which seems as likely as snowfall in Djibouti. A practical, if painful solution has been available since just after the 73 war. Good ideas are not lacking.
I don't know what Israel has on everybody else. I don't know why the "quartet", which represents the entire northern, industrialized world, more or less, has endure this kind of public bitch-slapping by Netanyahu, Sharon and the rest, inefinitely. Only Bush Sr spoke (however, mildly) against this madness and he was voted out of office about a year later. Why this happened is a perfectly fair question that nobody will ever ask within mainstream circles.
The ugly truth is that the best option for individual Palestinians is to get the hell out of Palestine and try to start a life elsewhere. For now and the foreseeable future, Palestine has been declared an official hellhole and the Palestinians, history's designated losers, by the powers that be. Under the circumstances, harm reduction may be the best strategy. A workable solution to this and all of humanity's big problems (economy, global warming, collapse, etc) has been declared off-limits. Constant war, environmental collapse, privatization, and the overall destruction of civil society are the new "normal". We're not passing through a "period of crisis". We have entered an "age of crisis", in which the role of government is the indirect perpetuation of conflict and collapse for the enrichment of our ruling elites. We are supposed to sink quietly into grinding poverty and the Palestinians are supposed to fade away and die.
I'd rather not. Anybody with me?
Not me. Sorry. The alternative is that the US could also cut Israel's feeding tube and all their atrocities would have to stop. Or better yet, the project known as Israel could be terminated and its citizens disbanded back to wherever they came from in the first place. I rather like that plan better than yours.
Wow! Mitchell's "efforts" end in failure. What a surprise!
Israel doesn't want peace. Israel cannot profit from peace. In order to maintain its victimhood, perpetual warmongering and aggressive status qou, it needs war, war and more war. So, if they say that they will agree to peace as long as the Palestinians recognize Israel as a state and the Palestinians agree, they change the tune to include post-1967 borders. If they agree, then they change the tune to include Syria. If they agree, they change their tune to include Mars. Even if the Palestinians agreed to each and every single one of Israel's whims, in the interim, they're buying time and stealing land. In a very bloody and sadistic way, they remind me of the wife in the Thousand And One Arabian Nights. Every night a different story and every story was one more day bought. At the end, so much time had past, so much had happened and her life was so intertwined with that of the sultan that he had to let her live. In the meantime, of course, they continue murdering Palestinians, draining the US and blackmailing the rest of the world.
This Netan-YAHOO and his country will not agree to anything until Israel's goal is reached: ethnic cleansing and taking over the entire region. This has been the aim even before the founding of the country and the Zionists are not about to stop pursuing this unless forced to do so. Why are the Arab nations not supporting Palestinians???
Where is French West Africa today? Where is the Belgian Congo or Burma? The point is the real estate is still there merely the name has changed on the map. It is time to wipe Israel's name from the map.
I'm starting to think that the borders that nuttyahho wants to establish are from the Med to the mountains of Afghanistan, from the Black Sea south to the tip of the Sinai Peninsula, with an option to take over the Nile river valley as well.
No, the government of israel doesn't want peace. I now doubt that they ever did.
I'm resolutely with VashkarKim on the force issue. This gangster Netanyahu just spent the last couple of months shitting in the face of the entire world on the flotilla episode, now disallowing the UN enquiry to talk to the IDF guys. Fuck off, Netanyahu. You're a murdering Nazi arsehole. You're guilty of crimes against humanity, and if there's one jot of justice in the universe, you'll get yours.
Also agree with quickstepper - Palestine shouldn't budge one inch, if anything, get tougher - it is right to say that it'll make no difference. Obergruppenfuhrer Netanyahu is out to slaughter every last Palestinian and wipe the memory of them from the earth. But, the nut of the problem of trying to send the biggest goddamn SWAT team imaginable into Israel is contained in John Pilger's observation yesterday on Real News: this shitass Zionist Nazi has in the neighbourhood of 500 nuclear warheads, while Iran has squat, and yet, all the focus is on Iran as the 'threat' in the middle East. Netanfuckface is burning up the long-distance bill to Obama urging that poor, addled, corporate whore to pull the trigger on Iran.
Sure, go right ahead. World War Three here we come. Maybe amidst all the mayhem that would result from the U.S. taking its teenaged-brained, penis-obsessed, military into Iran and finding itself - Surprise! - having to fight off the rest of Arabia, a force of a million or so seriously committed freaks could be bribed into dropping into Israel in the middle of the night and finally putting a stop to this nauseating Nazi bullshit.
In the meantime it would help if more media outlets, of any leaning, would cut the crap and call a spade a fucking shovel on this asshole Netanyahu, his Likud, his nukes, his land-theft, his graveyard-levelling, his murders on the high international seas, his concentration camps and his genocide.
And it would help if the U.S. would get on the right side of history, and, no matter the political cost with these U.S. Zionists, tear the baby off the tit.
Yeah. The very second hell freezes over.
One-state solution. Destroy presently-constituted Israel and force payment of reparations. How dare these fucking people do to the Palestinians what they've whined was done to them?
And why is this shit tolerated decade after decade? Because of this 'religious', 'chosen people of god' bullshit? Because some psychotic, domestic-violence-obsessed, permanently wrathful, testosterone-poisoned, imaginary friend in the sky told them to murder and fuck over everyone who doesn't cave into them?
All of this because these Zionist arseholes are insisting that their fairy-tale is better than anyone else's?
Fuck 'em. And fuck their 'god'.