Washington – The US administration is planning to present a proposal to resume the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians after the mid-term elections for Congress, the Palestinian daily Al-Quds reported over the weekend.
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The report came as State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki announced that a Palestinian delegation would arrive in Washington for high-level talks on ways to move forward with the stalled peace talks and the ongoing crisis in the Gaza Strip.
The delegation, headed by chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat, is expected to meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday.
The two sides are also scheduled to discuss ways of ending the recent upsurge in violence in east Jerusalem, a Palestinian Authority official said.
On Friday, Kerry phoned PA President Mahmoud Abbas and discussed with him the possibility of reviving the peace talks amidst ongoing tensions in east Jerusalem, the official added.
According to the Al-Quds report, the new US proposal consists of three points: ending settlement activity in the West Bank and freezing it in east Jerusalem; suspending the Palestinian bid at the Security Council to seek a resolution calling for setting a timeline for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines; and resuming the peace talks from the point where they ended last April.
The report quoted an informed source as saying that the US administration believes that it’s still possible to reach a peace agreement on the basis of the two-state solution.
However, the US administration also believes that the “window for such a solution is narrowing in light of the absence of confidence between Israel and the Palestinians and rising tensions resulting from both sides’ unilateral measures.”
Meanwhile, Erekat accused the Israeli government of working to destroy the two-state solution and “impose an apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Erekat told French diplomats and German parliamentarians that the Israeli government bears responsibility for the ongoing tensions and the collapse of the peace process because of its continued settlement activities and “assaults” on the Aqsa Mosque.
He said that the Palestinians were determined to proceed with their plan to seek a UN resolution requiring Israel to pull back to the pre-1967 lines within three years.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
Israel should not move forward or even consider any talks or negotiations with an apology from the President first and foremost.
yeh – you’re meeting with Palestinian TERRORISTS but ignoring Israel’s Yaalon refusing to even acknowledge his presence. WHAT A CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION
There should be several prerequisites to restarting peace talks.
1. All aid to Palestinian causes is contingent on complete cessation of terror activity. Until there is verifiable compliance with this, the US will not contribute a single dollar toward any form of aid to Palestinians.
2. Israel will never again be asked to make a single concession. Israel has already compromised itself beyond tolerable limits.
3. Violence anywhere in Israel by Palestinians is terror, and will be met with live fire. No one should look at Israel shooting a stone thrower as murder.
4. Gaza must be demilitarized.
5. Israel will build on its land without any voices of protest. That includes Obama. Kerry, and the rest of the Jew haters in Washington. There will be vetoes for every single UN Security Council anti-Israel motion.