Israel, Palestinians agree to more talks on Sept. 14-15

Reuters

WASHINGTON, 03 September 2010: Israeli and Palestinian leaders began their first round of direct peace negotiations in more than a year on Thursday, pledging to meet again in two weeks as part of a US-brokered quest for peace.

 

US Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held productive meetings and would meet again in the region on Sept. 14-15 and every two weeks thereafter.

 

The direct peace negotiations came despite widespread skepticism and fresh violence in the volatile West Bank that underscored the challenges facing both leaders as they seek an agreement within a year to establish an independent Palestinian state that will exist peacefully side-by-side with Israel.

 

 

“This will not be easy,” Netanyahu said as talks hosted by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began at the State Department. “A true peace, a lasting peace, would be achieved only with mutual and painful concessions from both sides.”

 

Netanyahu said Israel was ready to go “a long way in a short time” in this latest effort to reach a solution to the decades-long conflict, which US President Barack Obama has signaled is a top priority for his administration.

 

Abbas called on Israel to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip and stop settlement activity — a key sticking point that many fear could torpedo the talks within weeks.

 

Mitchell said both sides agreed that the talks were sensitive and that they would therefore release little information about details of their discussions.

 

“President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu are committed to doing what it takes to achieve the right result,” Mitchell told reporters, adding that both he and Clinton would attend the September talks.

 

Mitchell said the leaders agreed that the first item on the agenda would be to work up a “framework agreement” to establish the fundamental compromises necessary to reach a final deal within a year.

 

The talks mark the latest in a long line of efforts dating back decades to resolve one of the world’s most intractable disputes.

 

Obama, convening the talks ahead of the pivotal November US congressional elections, met both leaders at the White House on Wednesday and later urged them not to let the chance for peace slip.

 

Conciliatory mood

Netanyahu and Abbas appeared to be in a conciliatory public mood on Thursday. They met together with Clinton for more than an hour, and then privately one-on-one, US officials said.

 

Mitchell declined to say whether the two leaders had touched on the issue of Jewish settlements in areas of the West Bank occupied by Israel.

 

About half a million Jewish settlers live in communities scattered all over the West Bank that have the protection of Israeli armed forces, as well as in Arab East Jerusalem.

 

Abbas has said he will pull out of the talks unless Israel extends its self-imposed moratorium on new settlement construction, which is due to expire on Sept. 26.

 

But Netanyahu, who heads a coalition dominated by pro-settler parties, has appeared reluctant to take such a step, leading some analysts to predict that the talks could collapse within weeks of their launch.

 

Israel dismisses international findings that the Jewish settlements that have been built since the 1980s in the West Bank, on land occupied by the Israeli military since 1967, constitute a violation of international law.

 

The Palestinians say that the settlements are a direct threat to their hopes to achieve a homeland on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a goal that has eluded them since Israel was founded in 1948.

 

‘Ending incitement’

Abbas also said the Palestinians recognized the need for security, a key Israeli demand. “We want to state our commitment to follow on all our ... engagements, including security and ending incitement,” Abbas said.

 

The negotiations were denounced by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas’ Fatah party in 2007 and rejects negotiation with Israel.

 

Hamas, which killed four Israeli settlers in the a West Bank shooting attack on Tuesday, said it would continue the attacks and ignore any deal struck at the talks.

 

Jewish settlers, meanwhile, vowed to launch new construction in their enclaves in the occupied West Bank, saying they could never accept a “phony peace” that curbs their right to live in what they consider Israel’s biblical homeland.

 

Abbas and Netanyahu shook hands after the formal start of the talks, which took place in an ornate State Department conference room.

 

The direct negotiations, which mark a risky personal foray into Middle East peacemaking for Obama, come after a 20-month hiatus. Negotiators face deep divisions among both Israelis and Palestinians over the prospects for peace as well as the one-year timeline that Obama has set for results.

 

Acknowledging the “suspicions and skepticism” that surround the talks, Clinton said the United States would be a partner in the peace effort but would not impose its own solution.

 

“By being here today, you each have taken an important step toward freeing your peoples from the shackles of a history we cannot change and moving toward a future of peace and dignity that only you can create,” Clinton said.