PA will resume peace talks if Israel freezes settlement building

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diploma...eezes-settlement-building-abbas-says-1.395393

I put the actual news in bold, while the other stuff is just repeated everyday on Haaretz.

Anyway, what do you guys think about this?

Do you think Israel should freeze settlement expansion and/or building? as well as accept the 1967 borders as a basis for negotiation?

 

Israel will never cease its illegal squatter activities-it's a part of the Zionist plan for Eretz Israel.
It would be political suicide for Netanyahu; he had enough problems from his Zionist cabal cronies when the moratorium-that-never-was began.

 

They have too. No matter how many stories and statistics Israel can publish, Palestine if very much sick of the settlements. Also, the longer they continue building settlements, the harder it will be to reverse the settlements. The faster they stop, the faster they might talk to Palestine and I am assuming Palestine will talk to Israel once the settlements are frozen.

I just wonder how much political weight and power these 'settlements' have?

 

What exactly do you mean?

 

Both sides must negotiate without preconditions. Moreover, when 2 years ago Israel did freeze settlement construction for 11 months in response to Obama's request, the Palestinians refused to come to the negotiating table anyway.

 

I believe it was a 10 month settlement freeze, which in reality didn't change the construction in the West Bank very much. The Defence Ministry during that time showed about 2500 housing units were under construction, so they were not affected in anyway by the freeze (their construciton continued). In fact all building that had been started before the freeze was to still be constructed. Ehud Barak also around then approved construction of another 490 housing units which also didn't go under the "freeze". Also, the freeze didn't affect the construction of public facilities like schools and synagogues, with nearly another 28 approved at around the same time as the freeze. Oh and lastly, and maybe most importantly, all of East Jerusalem was not affected either.

Not much of a freeze if you ask me. Though, I still can look at it as some sort of gesture for peace. Whether or not it was a complete settlement freeze.


EDIT: Borat, just out of curiosity, but do you support the settlement construction?

 

If it is ever likely to happen, it won't be before a regime change in Syria and a cast iron guarantee that Hamas will abide by any promises made.

 

Well, close enough, the constructions that had already been started did continue and East Jerusalem was excluded. Yet for 10 months all new constructions were completely frozen. Perhaps Abbas did not get 100% of what he wanted, who ever does? He got 90%. It's still a pretty good deal, given that the Israeli concessions were unilateral and he gave up nothing at all. But I guess 90% was not good enough for him so he refused to negotiate... Then again what's the point to negotiate with a partner who does not understand the concept of compromise and meeting the opponent half way...If his position is all or nothing as he constantly demonstrates, why would Israel want to participate in a farce and agree to unilateral concessions that will never be reciprocated. When the arabs truly want peace, they will come and talk without preconditions.

 

Then Israel needs to abandon its precondition of only negotiating while expanding illegael settlements.

 

The US government needs to expand Palestinian settlements into Israel until Israelis learn to reject apartheid.

 

It was actually not really close to a freeze... Since its just about as much construction thats going on currently, probably more. And since East Jerusalem was excluded (one of the most controversial) it really couldn't be accepted too much as a freeze. And even once they accepted, they still aproved nearly 500 housing units and continued constructing 2,500 that were approved right before the deal. And during the whole 10 months all sort of public facilities were allowed to be built in all settlements, and did not come under the freeze.

So, it wasn't too much of a freeze like I already mentioned. If I were Abbas I wouldn't have accepted that as a legitimate freeze either.

The settlements don't have much of a legal standing, or any kind of support from the international community in the first place.

And the Israelis do have pre-conditions which they practically have been announced. They want Jerusalem as their capital, and try legalizing nearly all existing settlements. Usually Israel also tries to cancel out relavant UN resolutions as well. The Palestinians on the other hand, have their own pre-conditions. The difference between the two though, is that the Palestinians conditions agree with the international consensus data for a just, lasting, peace.

 

Actually the only Israeli precondition left was to recognize Israel as a Jewish state (which is how it was defined by the UN partition resolution in the first place). Jerusalem will of course be Israel's capital which does not preclude it from becoming the Palestinian capital as well (which was offered to Arafat). The point is though, Israel does not insist on its precondition (Jewish state) and is willing to negotiate even if it's not accepted by the Palestinians, the Palestinians on the other hand are adamant that their precondition must be accepted. They should drop it and start negotiating in earnest.

PS Israel is not keeping all settlements in any peace deal, just a few biggest and closest to Israel and the Palestinians will be compensated by an equitable amount of the Israeli land.

 

True, as an Israeli state. But if your going to start putting resolution 181 into account it also would have Israel and the Palestinians recognize all of Jerusalem as a corpus separatum administrated by the UN. Besdies resolution 181 was not implemented, even if it was what Israel announced its boundaries on in 1948 (it held 78% land not 55% like the partition).

The difference between the Palestinians precondition and Israel as a Jewish state is that the settlements don't have any legal standing.

EDIT: I have school now, I won't be able to reply in a while.

 

Hmm; the only 'freeze' in that case was on new build. Squats already under construction continued to be built unabated. A partial freeze is like being slightly pregnant-you either are or are not.

 

That's what I said, Abbas got 10 months of new construction freeze, so it was 90% not 100% of what he demanded. If the Palestinians truly wanted peace they would have been more than happy with that unilateral gesture.

It's quite obvious what they want though and peace is not part of it, they want a freeze and endless negotiations while the freeze is in effect. It's hight time for them to get serious about peace, sit down at the negotiating table and start talking. By procrastinating, they only make their negotiating position worse.

 

By deflecting onto Hamas you conveniently ignore Netanyahu's public proclamation that he deliberately derailed Oslo; probably the closest we ever got to the real possibility of a lasting peace agreement-and you say the Palestinians aren't serious about wanting peace?

 

Actually I did not mention Hamas at all in my previous posts. Needless to say Hamas is the elephant in the room and no real peace is possible if half of the 'unity government' and the population it represents will never recognize Israel in any borders.

Other than that I am yet to see a shred of evidence that the Palestinians are serious about peace. From Arafat walking out without a counter-offer, to Abbas using all kinds to excuses to avoid direct negotiations, the unwilligness to compromise on the 'Jewish" state and the right of return, the unilateral counter-productive UN actions... color me sceptical.

 

If Israel stops hating Semites, then maybe one won't recognize it as being an anti-Semite state.

 

maybe we should send our mexicans over to palestine that way all the settlements can be LEGAL

 

As ' peace talks ' are anathema to Zionism and the building of illegal settlements the lifeblood of this doctrine of ethnic cleansing the Palestinians are assured that neither a freeze nor talks will be taking place. They should concentrate their energies on attacking all invaders of their country with every means at their disposal - because they've already tried everything else . At least they know now with absolute certainty, thanks to Netanyahu, that the US of AIPAC has been working with the Zionists all along and will only cease to prop up the Zionist regime when no Zionist regime exists to defend. That should be the goal of all progressives and all civilizations- to ensure that the Zionist regime ceases to exist. We did it to Nazism, now let's rid the world of Zionism. Jews don't need it.

 

Honestly I think the Israelis are so pissed off and angry at this point that they are willing to settle the issue by war.

 

All of Israel's previous attacks have shown that Israel attacks again. The more that one attacks, the more than one views attacking as one's reason for being.

 

Did I miss the part where they offered to permanently recognize the state of Israel?

 

The nation of Palestine wants to be recognized by Israel as a full member of the UN, but Israel rejected such since it favors Semite-hating illegal settlement expansions.

 

Theyre not ready ,they have terrorists running their "nation". The PA and Hamas are still trying to reconcile as a single government.How about ironing out that casserole of nonsense first? The the effect of electing terrorists to run your country, who's goals include the annhilation of Israel on the ability to be seen as a rational,cohesive,credible partner in peace is on display all to see. Until a time when the people of "Palestine" (including their dedicated leadership) get their stuff together,families are getting bigger in the settlements...time really isnt on the Palestinians side,in case youve heard differently.