Hillary Huffs, Arab League Puffs, Abbas Blows The House Down

If Abbas believes that America will insist that Israel cease all building activity in East Jerusalem - then pigs might really fly

By David Singer Wednesday, March 17, 2010

It may seem discourteous to Jews and Arabs to refer to their current spat in the same breath as the tale of the three little pigs.

There is rare unanimity between Jews and Arabs when it comes to pigs - both religions forbid the eating of pig or any product derived from pig.

However this common bond has been trashed into pig swill when it comes to Jews and Arabs living within cooee of each other on a postage sized piece of land comprising 5% of historic Palestine with an area approximating the size of Delaware.

The squeals and snorts emanating from the Arab side at the thought of Israel building 1600 housing units in East Jerusalem to accommodate the burgeoning population growth among religious Jewish families averaging 5-6 children continues with ever piercing ferocity. It is almost certain to erupt in a frenzy of demonstrations and stone throwing.

You would think the Arabs were being led to the slaughter and were being pushed out of their existing residences to make way for the Jews. Certainly there have been Court ordered evictions of Arab squatters on Jewish owned properties in East Jerusalem but the 1600 planned units were not slated to be built on the site of those disputed properties.

Israel certainly did commit a huge PR gaffe in announcing its intention to build those 1600 housing units in East Jerusalem for a group of religious Jews who do not even support the existence of Israel as a Jewish State.

To make that announcement was extremely naïve and provocative at precisely the time that the Vice President of the United States - Joseph Biden - was visiting Jerusalem - with an entourage that had booked out 200 hotel rooms - to launch the beginning of proximity negotiations to supposedly advance the resolution of competing Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Arab League - believing it could now renege on giving its blessing to those negotiations commencing - - then promptly committed its own PR gaffe in withdrawing its consent to those proximity talks being held - - just two days after agreeing those talks should go ahead .

The American Vice President however appeared to accept Israel’s apology unreservedly.

There the matter should have ended and the proximity talks begun but for the intervention of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who roundly condemned Israel for spoiling what would have been seen as a triumph of American diplomacy in bringing a recalcitrant Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiating pen.

Clinton’s verbal onslaught on Israel encouraged Abbas to believe he could now get America to demand Israel halt all building activity in East Jerusalem before the proximity talks were begun.

America - albeit reluctantly - had accepted Israel’s position almost four months ago that there would be no such halt as a condition to the resumption of any negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas now mistakenly sniffed a new opportunity to wheedle out of the proximity negotiations with an enraged Hillary Clinton’s backing.

The Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator - Saeb Erekat - certainly conveyed that impression when making the following statement:

“The PA “welcomes the statements from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Quartet condemning the Israeli government decision to build settlements in the eastern sector of Jerusalem…

We want these positions to become binding and for Israel to scrap its settlement decisions, especially its plan to build 1600 homes in Jerusalem…

“We want a total halt… we want to stop this Israeli policy that is useless and destructive for the peace process, especially for the US administration’s honest efforts to relaunch real and serious negotiations.”

Hillary Clinton’s huff however had more to do with something ingrained in Arab culture - the loss of face and the need to regain face as soon as possible.

Abbas already had found himself suffering a distinct loss of face when he agreed to commence proximity negotiations - and only after the Arab League provided him with the face saving cover to do so.

His political opponents - Hamas - and other radical Palestinian Arab groups had ridiculed his decision and denigrated his authority when commenting on Abbas’s decision:

“This decision will have serious repercussions for the Palestinians and their cause,” said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip. “This decision will help Israel in ending the state of isolation it has been in because of its war crimes against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

Another Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, condemned the decision to resume the negotiations as a “crime” against the Palestinians.

“We consider these negotiations, which will take place in the wake of Israeli escalation against our people and holy sites, a national crime,” he said. “Anyone who negotiates with the occupation is a criminal against our people.”

Abbas was feeling decidedly threatened by his own brethren until Israel’s intemperate announcement provided the Arab League and himself with what he thought was an opportunity for another opportunity to miss an opportunity and regain the loss of face he had sustained by bending to American pressure to agree to proximity negotiations in the first place.

Vice President Biden’s immediate acceptance of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s apology however left the Arab League and Abbas high and dry yet again and subject to even further loss of face if Abbas limply crawled back to the negotiating table in the face of Israel’s provocative announcement to build those 1600 units in East Jerusalem. Hamas would have had a real field day in denouncing Abbas.

Hillary’s attempt to play piggy in the middle by rapping Israel severely over the knuckles thereby restoring Abbas’s loss of face among his own power base, saving his bacon and enabling him to once again agree to conducting proximity negotiations - had backfired.

Abbas misinterpreted Hillary’s huff as a signal that America would now pressure Israel to cease all building activity in East Jerusalem before he was required to commence any proximity negotiations.

If Abbas believes that America will insist Israel do that - then pigs might really fly.

Canada Free Press

David Singer Most recent columns

David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International—an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at: [url=http://www.jordanispalestine.blogspot.com]http://www.jordanispalestine.blogspot.com[/url]

David can be reached at: letters@canadafreepress.com

Abbas seeks U.S. answers before talking to Israel

Reuters.com

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday he was still waiting for the United States to explain how it might help restart peace talks before he will consider reopening those negotiations

A senior aide to U.S. mediator George Mitchell will meet Abbas in the coming days, a senior U.S. official said.

Abbas has resisted U.S. and other Western pressure to resume negotiations with Israel which were suspended over a year ago. He has insisted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu impose a complete freeze on the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"We are still awaiting the American administration's response regarding their proposals," Abbas said of suggestions that Washington could host "proximity talks" involving officials, but not leaders, from the two sides as a way of preparing for a full-scale resumption of negotiations.

He accused Israel of obstructing a process which has failed to produce a negotiated settlement and a Palestinian state in nearly two decades of talking. Israel says Abbas should return to talks, a view shared by the United States and its allies.

Netanyahu, who says he is ready to talk without conditions, ordered a 10-month freeze on some settlement projects in much of the West Bank. But, in line with Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem and its suburbs, he has refused to include building there in any settlement pause.

That annexation is not recognized internationally, and Washington and its allies have long urged Israel to comply with a commitment under the 2003, U.S.-brokered "road map" peace plan to halt the expansion of all settlements.

"SETTLEMENTS EXPANDED"

The Israeli lobby group Peace Now, which campaigns against the expansion of settlements and for a two-state solution to the conflict, said on Monday it had evidence building has continued -- sometimes under cover of darkness -- since Netanyahu's declared freeze in 34 settlements, a quarter of the total.

Diplomats say efforts to resolve the conflict, which was complicated by the seizure of the Gaza Strip in 2007 by Abbas's Islamist rivals Hamas, focus mainly on helping Abbas find face-saving ways to return to negotiations without securing the kind of settlement freeze that Netanyahu will not deliver.

Abbas noted that he would discuss any U.S. proposals with the Arab League. Diplomats say broader Arab backing for a return to talks with Israel would help Abbas make such a move, although few diplomats or regional officials hold high hopes of rapid progress toward a final settlement of the conflict.

Nabil Abu Rdainah, an aide to Abbas, told Reuters on Monday: "We have told the Americans we are ready for proximity talks but we want answers to certain questions."

Saying that Abbas had been waiting nearly three weeks for those answers, Abu Rdainah said Palestinians wanted to be sure that any talks would address all the "core issues" of the conflict. These are notably the establishment of state borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

Some Israeli officials, as well as diplomats, have suggested phased negotiations where the borders of a Palestinian state might be agreed in advance of a resolution of other issues.

Abbas has said he does not want a partial or interim deal.

(Reporting by Tom Perry and in Ramallah, Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem and Arshad Mohammed in Doha; writing by Alastair Macdonald, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Abbas: I won't withdraw settlement freeze demand

In interview with Der Spiegel, Palestinian president says he's disappointed Obama 'backed away' from insistence on complete halt to West Bank construction prior to resumption of peace talks. 'World must not drive the Palestinians to the point of total hopelessness,' he warns

Ynet.com

"Naturally, I'm not pleased with the American's change of course. But I will not back down," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said. In an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, published Sunday, the Palestinian leader said, "I was initially very optimistic after (US President Barack) Obama won the election. His Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, kept coming to us and promised to urge the Israelis to stop settlement construction completely. Mitchell said that the negotiations would only resume after a moratorium. The American government suddenly backed away from this position in September. Opinion A ridiculous vision / Hagai Segal Notion of Palestinian declaration of independence should be met with laughter Full Story "I still hope that he will revive the peace process. At least he has to convince the Israelis to announce a complete freeze on construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem for a few months," Abbas said. "It isn't my job to tell the Americans how to deal with Israel. But they have options. They are, after all, the most powerful country in the world. Obama said that a Palestinian state constitutes a vital American interest. The president is under an obligation to apply all of his energy to achieving peace and the vision of a Palestinian state." Asked by Der Spiegel whether the real reason for the current standstill is that he does not trust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," Abbas said, "What he has said so far, at any rate, leads me to question whether he really wants a solution. He has not expressly accepted the two-state solution. "He's the one who is setting preconditions. He declares Jerusalem as the 'undivided and eternal capital of the State of Israel.' He refuses to discuss the question of Palestinian refugees. And he insists that we accept Israel in advance as a Jewish state," the Palestinian president said of the Israeli premier. In the interview, Abbas reiterated his demand that Israel stop settlement construction completely and recognize the 1967 borders prior to the resumption of peace talks. 'We were in a race against time' According to him, these demands are not preconditions, but rather "steps that are overdue after the first phase of the international roadmap for peace. "Unlike Israel, we have met our obligations: We have recognized Israel's right to exist, and we are combating violent Palestinian groups. The Americans, the Europeans and even the Israelis have acknowledged this," he said. Abbas said the Palestinians negotiated "very seriously" with former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "We exchanged maps showing the locations of the borders. Then he left office. His successor Tzipi Livni lost the subsequent election. "We were in a race against time to reach a solution. But I wasn't the one who thwarted an agreement. Olmert resigned from office shortly before the finish line," he told Der SpiegeAsked whether his decision not to run again for the office of president of the Palestinian Authority constitutes an admission that he will no longer be able to make the Palestinian dream of a sovereign state a reality, Abbas said, "That's absolutely correct. The road to a political solution is blocked. For that reason, I see no purpose in remaining president of the Palestinian Authority. "And I also have a warning for the world: Do not drive the Palestinians to the point of total hopelessness," he said.

‘Corruption will let Hamas take W. Bank'.

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Dramatic warning delivered by Abbas’s former corruption-buster Fahmi Shabaneh.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the corrupt officials who used to work for his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, and that’s why Hamas will one day take control of the West Bank, Fahmi Shabaneh, who was appointed by Abbas four years ago to root out corruption in the Palestinian Authority, said on Thursday.

In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, Shabaneh, who until recently was in charge of the Anti-Corruption Department in the PA’s General Intelligence Service (GIS), warned that what happened in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, when Hamas managed to overthrow the Fatah-controlled regime, is likely to recur in the West Bank.

“Had it not been for the presence of the Israeli authorities in the West Bank, Hamas would have done what they did in the Gaza Strip,” Shabaneh told the Post. “It’s hard to find people in the West Bank who support the Palestinian Authority. People are fed up with the financial corruption and mismanagement of the Palestinian Authority.

”Shabaneh said that many Palestinians in the West Bank have lost hope that the PA would one day be reformed. “The Palestinian Authority is very corrupt and needs to be overhauled,” he said.

Shabaneh cited several specific cases of alleged corruption within Fatah and the PA in the course of the interview, including asserting that Fatah personnel stole much of a $3.2 million donation given by the US to Fatah ahead of the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election, won by Hamas, which had been intended to improve Fatah’s image and boost its chances of winning.

Shabaneh, a resident of east Jerusalem who worked as a lawyer before joining the GIS as its legal adviser after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, said he was forced to quit his anti-corruption job several months ago after exposing a sex scandal involving one of Abbas’s top aides in Ramallah in 2009.

Video footage and other documents presented to the Post by Shabaneh show the aide lying naked in bed after being lured to an apartment in Ramallah by an east Jerusalem woman.

The footage shows Shabaneh and other armed security agents storming the bedroom, much to the surprise of the Abbas aide who is heard uttering: “Thank God it’s you and not the Israelis.”

Shabaneh said in the interview, the first of its kind with a high-ranking PA security official, that he and his men had been operating on instructions from their boss, Gen. Tawfik Tirawi, the former head of the GIS. Tirwai, for his part, denied that he had authorized Shabaneh to spy on the Abbas aide.

The top aide, who is one of the closest advisers to Abbas, was caught on tape making derogatory remarks against Abbas and Arafat. “President Abbas has no charisma” and is “not in control,” he was quoted as saying. The aide was also caught on tape denouncing Arafat as one of the biggest dajjals (swindlers).

After the revelations, which were brought to Abbas’s attention and were embarrassing for the PA president, Shabaneh was removed from his anti-corruption post and reassigned as head of the GIS’s internal security force. More recently, he was promoted to overall commander of the GIS in the area.

Shortly afterwards, however, Shabaneh was arrested by Israeli police on suspicion of recruiting east Jerusalem residents to the GIS, spying on Israel, chasing suspected “collaborators” and Arabs involved in real estate deals with Jews, and threatening and blackmailing the senior Abbas aide.

Shabaneh has since been released from prison and most of the charges against him dropped. Today he remains under house arrest and is banned from entering the West Bank. The only charge he faces today is membership in a Palestinian military organization – a charge he claims is absurd given the fact that about 1,200 residents of east Jerusalem serve in the various security branches of the PA.

Shabaneh said that he had no doubt that his arrest by Israel was carried out at the request of “someone high in Abbas’s office to punish me for fighting corruption and exposing sex scandals involving not only the senior aide, but many other officials as well.”

He said that the decision to arrest him and prosecute him was also absurd because was always aware of his work and status in the PA security forces and never did anything to him.

“For many years I worked as legal adviser to the General Intelligence Apparatus and no one ever asked me anything,” Shabaneh noted. “When I was commander of the force in the area the Israelis even used to coordinate a lot with us.”

Shabaneh insisted that the decision to pursue corrupt officials in Abbas’s inner circle was part of the PA president’s declared policy to combat financial corruption. “In his pre-election platform, President Abbas promised to end financial corruption and implement major reforms, but he hasn’t done much since then,” he said. “Unfortunately, Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the thieves and officials who were involved in theft of public funds and who became icons of financial corruption.”

Shabaneh said that as head of the anti-corruption unit he and his men succeeded in exposing dozens of cases involving senior officials who had stolen public funds but were never held accountable.

“Some of the most senior Palestinian officials didn’t have even $3,000 in their pocket when they arrived [after the signing of the Oslo Accords],” Shabaneh said. “Yet we discovered that some of them had tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in their bank accounts.

Until today we didn’t hear about one official who was brought to trial for stealing money from the PA, although we had transferred many of the cases to the Palestinian prosecutor-general.”

Questioned as to why he had decided to go public now, Shabaneh said: “I’m not criticizing the Palestinian Authority simply because I like to criticize, but because I want to see a state of law, one with no room for corruption. I was offered $100,000 not to expose the last sex scandal, but I chose not to accept the bribe. I’m the one who resigned after my arrest, because after all that I’ve seen I no longer believe that Abbas’s authority can be reformed.

Asked whether PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is working to establish good government, Shabaneh said: “Salam Fayyad is a good man and I have a lot of respect for him. He’s really working to build professional institutions and good government, but the corrupt Fatah people around Abbas are doing their utmost to thwart his efforts.”

He added: “Even Abbas tried in the beginning, but the corrupt officials working with him didn’t allow him to make progress.”

Shabaneh also said he had managed to track down some of the financial aid that went missing during and after the period of Arafat’s death.

“I discovered, for example, that several senior officials had taken millions of dollars from the Palestinian leadership under the pretext that they wanted to purchase land that would otherwise be confiscated by Israel,” he said.“

Our investigations revealed that many of the purported land deals were fictitious transactions and we even forced one official to return more than $800,000. We had another case where a senior Fatah official and his brother pocketed about $2.5m. which they took from Arafat under the pretext that they wanted to purchase land in the West Bank before Israel lays its hand on it.

Asked whether he believed outside donors should stop channeling funds to Abbas, he said his advice to the donor countries “is to follow up on their donations to examine how and where the money is being spent. We caught some officials who stole about $700,000 from the donors to study the atmosphere in . Why do we need to spend such a huge amount of money on something trivial like this when many people are suffering and have nothing to eat or feed their children?”

Was he serious about Hamas taking over the ? “Yes, no question about that,” he said. “It will happen one day if the state of corruption and anarchy continue in the West Bank .

“Why do you think Hamas kicked us out of the Gaza Strip? Because the people there were fed up with the corruption and bad government of Fatah. What do you think the people in the Gaza Strip used to think when they saw a colonel in the Palestinian Authority driving in a big motorcade and surrounded by dozens of bodyguards and assistants?”

Did he see no chance that Fatah would reform? “As long as the same corrupt guys are running the show we shouldn’t expect real changes,” said Shabaneh.

“Before the 2006 parliamentary election, the Americans gave Fatah $3.2m. to improve the party’s image and boost its chances of winning. But the Fatah people even stole most of the money that was intended to help them improve their image and reputation. These corrupt officials know no limits. They even used to forge Arafat’s signature to obtain money by fraud,” he said.


Khaled Abu Toameh
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Abbas: Occupation leading to one-state solution

Palestinian president tell the Guardian, 'There will be progress if Israel accepts accept framework of two-state solution based on the 1967 borders and an end to occupation.' Adds: There will be no return to armed struggle; it would destroy our territories and our country

Ynet

Published:

02.01.10, 01:07 / Israel News

Israel's continued settlement of the West Bank is leading to a "one-state solution", Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the Guardian. In an interview with the British newspaper, published Sunday, Abbas indicating that he may be poised this week to accept a US offer for "proximity talks" with Israel through American mediators Speaking in London after meeting Gordon Brown and the foreign secretary, David Miliband, the Palestinian leader said he did not know why the Americans "backed off" their demand for a full Israeli construction moratorium in the West Bank. "If there is any substance in the response from the Israeli side – for example, if they accept the framework of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders and an end to occupation, with timelines and mechanisms – then there will be progress," Abbas was quoted by the Guardian as saying. According to the Guardian, Abbas also said he would be willing to resume full face-to-face peace talks if Israel halted all settlement construction for three months and accepted its June 1967 borders as the basis for land swaps. "These are not preconditions, they are requirements in the road map. If they are not prepared to do that, it means they don't want a political solution," the Palestinian leader told the newspaper. 'Hamas talking about peace' In the interview, Abbas claimed that negotiations with former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before the Gaza war had gone further than those held in January 2001 at Taba between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak and included "border swaps, Jerusalem and the return of some refugees". However, the Palestinian president told the British daily, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government refused to accept what had been agreed as a basis for further negotiation. Abbas stressed that "There will be no return to armed struggle," saying such a struggle would "destroy our territories and our country." Hamas itself, he claimed, "is not resisting" – a reference to the organization's effective ceasefire since January last year – "and now they are talking about peace and a truce with Israel" The Palestinian president said if Israel continued to "resist an end to occupation", he would resign and refuse to stand in new elections: "I will have to tell our people there is no hope and no use in my staying in office," he said. Abbas' four years as elected PA president expired a year ago, but last month the PLO extended his term until any new elections are held. .

MYTH “There is urgency to resolve the Palestinian-Israel conflict.”

FACT

President Barak Obama has said the Palestinian-Israeli conflict “is a critical issue to deal with, in part because it is in the United States’ interest to achieve peace; that the absence of peace between Palestinians and Israelis is a impediment to a whole host of other areas of increased cooperation and more stable security for people in the region, as well as the United States.”²⁸⁹

It may be argued that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is urgent for the United States if you believe that the conflict is really an impediment to Arab cooperation on the Iranian nuclear issue. The evidence, however, is that the Arab states have never seriously cared about the Palestinians and that they have their own self-interest in seeing Iran’s nuclear ambitions thwarted, an issue which has nothing to do with the Palestinian question.

The parties also do not see any urgency. In fact, in September 2008, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas turned down then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s sweeping offer for Palestinian statehood that would have given the Palestinians 98.1% of the West Bank and allowed thousands of Palestinians to return to Israel.²⁹⁰ Yet, Abbas turned down the offer, claiming there were “gaps,”²⁹¹ and failed to offer a viable counteroffer.

Following his May 2009 meeting with President Obama, Abbas also made clear the Palestinians are in no hurry to negotiate with Israel, let alone make any concessions. He expressed the view that Obama’s opposition to Israeli settlements would eventually bring down the Netanyahu government and he was content to put off any peace talks until Netanyahu is out of office. Jackson Diehl wrote in The Washington Post that “Abbas and his team…plan to sit back and watch while U.S. pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office. ‘It will take a couple of years,’ one official breezily predicted.”²⁹² Until then, Abbas stated, “in the West Bank we have a good reality… we are having a good life”²⁹³.

This statement contrasts starkly with the typical image projected by the PA and the media of the Palestinians as an impoverished, suffering people. Abbas also left no doubt that the Palestinian leadership feels no urgency for a resumption of the peace process. Abbas told Obama, “There’s just about nothing you can do.”²⁹⁴

Israelis also see no urgency. While the Israeli public and prime minister are committed to peace with the Palestinians they are very cognizant of the Palestinians’ obstinate position. Furthermore, Israelis see no chance of reaching an agreement with the Palestinians so long as their leadership remains splintered with Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip and the West Bank barely controlled by the unpopular and politically weak Abbas.

Israelis also need confidence building time to recover from fighting three wars in the last nine years that have cost more than 1,200 Israeli lives and forced parts of the country to live in a state of almost constant anxiety as a result of years of rocket bombardments. Indeed, during Obama’s meeting with Abbas, the president told the Palestinian president that the Israelis have good reason to be concerned about security.²⁹⁵ The American president should therefore understand that now is not the time for a rush to diplomacy and that the first priority should be creating a sense of security in Israel.

“Peace now” is not just a slogan, it is what every Israeli wants. President Obama should be applauded for sharing this desire and wanting to make it a reality; however, the conditions in the region will have to radically improve before it will be possible to achieve the goal Americans and Israelis share.

MYTH

“Palestinian leaders are committed to peace.”

FACT

On June 14, 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for negotiations with the Palestinians to resume without preconditions. He also described his vision of peace as one between two sovereign nations living side-by-side. To achieve this two-state solution, he said, the Palestinians must recognize the State of Israel and accept a demilitarized state.²⁹⁶

Following Netanyahu’s speech, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement praising Netanyahu’s remarks, “The President is committed to two states, a Jewish state of Israel and an independent Palestine, in the historic homeland of both peoples. He believes this solution can and must ensure both Israel's security and the fulfillment of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations for a viable state, and he welcomes Prime Minister Netanyahu's endorsement of that goal.”²⁹⁷

The response of the Palestinian leadership to Netanyahu’s invitation to revive the peace process, however, was hostile. Chief Palestinian Authority negotiator, Saeb Erekat, called on the Arab countries to suspend the Arab peace initiative. Multiple spokesmen for PA President Mahmoud Abbas called on the international community to isolate Netanyahu for what they describe as his “sabotage” of the peace process, and PA officials in Ramallah warned of a new round of violence and a new intifada.²⁹⁸ This followed Abbas’s earlier remarks suggesting that he was prepared to wait for years, until he believed Netanyahu was forced from office, before resuming negotiations with Israel.²⁹⁹

Abbas not to see Hamas chief in Syria visit: official

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a live speech on the 45th anniversary of his Fatah party's establishment in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Dec. 31, 2009. (Xinhua File Photo)

www.chinaview.cn 2010-01-09 18:47:03

RAMALLAH, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plans to visit Syria but will not meet his exiled Hamas rival, an official from Abbas' Fatah party said Saturday.

Abbas will not meet Hamas' politburo chief Khaled Mashaal in his planned visit to Damascus, said Jamal Muhissen, a member of Fatah's Central Committee.

"If Hamas had signed the reconciliation deal, there would have been meetings between the two sides," Muhissen added, referring to an Egyptian proposal to reconcile Hamas and Fatah.

The Islamic Hamas movement, which took over Gaza by force in 2007, raised reservations on the Egyptian offer to restore political unity to Gaza and the Fatah-ruled West Bank.

Earlier, Palestinian sources said that Abbas will sit with Mashaal in a meeting sponsored by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.　

RELATED:

Fatah official rules out immediate reconciliation deal with Hamas

RAMALLAH, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A senior official of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party on Sunday ruled out the possibility of striking a reconciliation agreement immediately with rival Islamic Hamas movement.

Meanwhile, a senior Hamas leader said that his movement ruling the Gaza Strip doesn't oppose the signing of the reconciliation pact drafted by Egypt. Full story

Abbas: reconciliation agreement with Hamas only to be signed in Egypt

RAMALLAH, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday declared that he has rejected an offer from rival Hamas to sign national reconciliation deal in other place than Egypt.

"Hamas has officially offered to sign the Egyptian document under the condition that the signing doesn't take pace in Egypt," Abbas said in a live speech on the 45th anniversary of his Fatah party's establishment. Full story

(Related articles can be found on same website)

U.S.: We want Israel to free Fatah prisoners in Shalit deal

By Avi Issacharoff, Barak Ravid and Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondents and News Agencies

The ministerial team negotiating the release of Gilad Shalit is reportedly split on whether to accept Hamas' terms for the deal.

The members of the ministerial team, along with envoy Hagai Hadash and a few senior officials in the defense establishment, are the only individuals receiving updates on indirect talks with Hamas, which are being mediated by a German broker.

A senior official in the U.S. administration told Haaretz that if the deal for Shalit's release is completed, the U.S. would be interested in seeing Israel releasing Fatah prisoners as well, in addition to other gestures to bolster's Fatah's status compared to Hamas. "We are telling the Israelis that [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas' situation needs to be mitigated," the U.S. official said.

Abbas said that the German mediator involved in negotiations for Shalit's release has threatened to quit unless a deal is reached within weeks. Abbas told the state-owned Egyptian daily Al Ahram that negotiations over the prisoner exchange were a matter exclusively between Israel and Hamas and the German and French mediators, and that he was not involved. On Friday, Fox News reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been reluctant to sign a deal presented to him three weeks ago to secure Shalit's release, adding that the prime minister's seven senior cabinet members were divided over the proposed agreement. The family of Gilad Shalit asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bureau last night to confirm a number of recent reports on the state of negotiations with Hamas to secure the abducted Israeli soldier's release. Activists in the campaign to free Gilad, as well as the Shalit family, say that up to this point, they haven't received an answer or any other information from the prime minister. Meanwhile, the Gaza-based newspaper Palestine reported Saturday that Mohammed Nazzal, a senior Hamas official, said that the talks were frozen due to Israel's refusal to free a significant number of prisoners whose release Hamas demands. Nazzal went on to say that Israel is attempting to use disinformation to influence the Palestinian public and the families of Palestinian prisoners to exert pressure on Hamas. He said Hamas seeks a "respectable deal" and the release of the maximum number of Palestinian prisoners. Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman will visit Israel today to discuss the Middle East peace process, according to an Al-Hayat report published on Friday. Though Egypt has been involved in talks for Shalit's release, Suleiman visit is not expected to focus on the deal for the release of the soldier Hamas captured in a cross-border raid more than three years ago. The report in Al-Hayat quoted Suleiman as saying that the impasse in the peace process was weakening the moderates in the Middle East, which could adversely affect the entire region. He reiterated that Israel must immediately stop all settlement construction.

The Palestinian Authority Sets its New Strategy: Tempts Obama Administration with Instant Peace if it Pressures Israel.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

We now have Mahmoud Abbas's answer regarding short-term Palestinian Authority (PA) strategy. He says that if Israel stops all construction now—in Jerusalem and the 3000 apartments being completed—and accepts in advance the 1967 borders and there will be peace within six months. This is the basic story we've been hearing since around 1988: one or more Israeli concessions and everyone will live happily ever after.

This is clearly bait being dangled for President Barack Obama, offering him an "easy" way out of his dilemma of not having any peace talks after almost a year in office: pressure Israel to give up more and you will look good, with plenty of photo opportunities of you presiding over Israel-PA talks.

Of course, what Abbas wants to do is to remove one of the main points of Israeli leverage, the borders to be agreed upon and the status of east Jerusalem. Moreover, is leaving out both the additional demands he will be demanding (all Palestinians who want to can go live in Israel) and all the Israeli demands he will be ignoring (recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, the end of the conflict and dropping all Palestinian claims, security guarantees, an unmilitarized Palestinian state, settling all refugees in Palestine).

In addition, of course, he can't speak for about half the people and territory he claims to represent, that is, the Gaza Strip. And by not holding elections and unilaterally extending his term, Abbas leaves the door open for some future Palestinian leadership saying he had no legitimate mandate to negotiate and therefore any agreement he made isn't binding.

Finally, he made one very big misstatement of fact, hoping—as usual—that the West pays no attention to what's said in Arabic. He claims that the PA has stopped incitement against Israel, in terms of urging violence and rejecting Israel's existence. While the PA is, of course, far better than Hamas on such matters, a very large dossier can be compiled on how that is a lie.

The question is what will the Obama Administration do? Is it going to press Israel for still more unilateral concessions so that the PA will come to talks and President Obama can claim a success? Will it try to get the PA to do something in terms of confidence-building measures or to talk without preconditions? Israel is certainly not going to accept the 1967 borders with absolutely no change before even talking with the PA (and probably not even as part of a peace agreement).

Indeed, it is now Obama administration policy that there need to be minor border modifications to accommodate the post-1967 changes on the ground. Moreover, Israel can say that if it stops all construction immediately, including in Jerusalem, the PA still won't talk so what's the point?

Incidentally, Abbas admitted that he never asked for an Israeli construction freeze before but is only doing so in the context of the Roadmap Plan. However, even after the Road Map, Abbas never made this a big issue until after Obama demanded the construction freeze. In objective terms, the president has no one to blame but himself for this mess, but of course he isn't going to blame himself. He has to blame either Israel or the PA. Which will it be?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

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