Rocket hits open area in Sha'ar HaNegev, no injuries reported
Published: 07.30.13 11:08 / Israel News
I just dont get it How & Why is releasing convicted terrorist prisoners a ground for opening peace talks...contrary to the meaning of peace
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By Noah Browning
CAIRO (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas laid out his vision on Monday for the final status of Israeli-Palestinian relations ahead of peace talks due to resume in Washington for the first time in nearly three years.
Abbas said that no Israeli settlers or border forces could remain in a future Palestinian state and that Palestinians deem illegal all Jewish settlementbuilding within the land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
The forceful statements appeared to challenge mediator U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's hopes that the terms of the talks, scheduled to begin Monday night over dinner, be kept secret.
"In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli - civilian or soldier - on our lands," Abbas said in a briefing to mostly Egyptian journalists.
"An international, multinational presence like in Sinai, Lebanon and Syria - we are with that," he said, referring to United Nations peacekeeping operations in those places.
He was in Cairo to meet with Egypt's interim president, Adli Mansour, nearly a month after the country's armed forces ousted his elected predecessor, Mohamed Mursi. He also discussed with senior Egyptian intelligence figures relations between the two governments and the easing of movement of goods and people between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Israel has previously said it wants to maintain a military presence in the occupied West Bank at the border with Jordan to prevent any influx of weapons that could be used against it.
But Abbas said he stood by understandings he said he reached with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, predecessor to more right-wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu, that NATO forces could deploy there "as a security guarantee to us and them."
The United States is seeking to broker an agreement on a two-state solution in which Israel would exist peacefully alongside a new Palestinian state created in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, lands occupied by the Israelis since a 1967 war.
The talks will be conducted by senior aides to Netanyahu - Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Molcho - and to Abbas - represented by Saeb Erekat and Mohammed Ishtyeh.
On the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank and the status of Jerusalem - among the most contentious issues facing the two sides - Abbas signaled no softening of his stance.
"We've already made all the necessary concessions," he said.
"East Jerusalem is the capital of the state of Palestine ... if there were and must be some kind of small exchange (of land) equal in size and value, we are ready to discuss this - no more, no less," he said.
TERMS OF REFERENCE
Before agreeing to return to talks last week, Palestinian officials were adamant that negotiations should have three main prerequisites: the release of veteran Arab prisoners in Israeli jails, a full settlement freeze and an acknowledgment of the 1967 lines as the basis for future borders.
Israel has publicly granted only one of those demands when its Cabinet on Sunday voted by a slim margin to approve the phased release of 104 Arab prisoners.
Abbas said on Monday that he refused to endorse any half-measure whereby he would let Israel freeze construction in smaller, more far-flung settlements but allow it to build in the larger and more populous "blocs" closer to the 1967 lines.
"There was a request, 'We'll only build here, what do you think?' If I agreed, I would legitimize all the rest (of the settlements). I said no. I said out loud and in writing that, to us, settlements in their entirety are illegitimate."
Asked if the Americans may try to get Israel to agree to a de facto settlement freeze, the president made a broad smile and declined to answer: "I don't know."
Palestinian sources say officials remain uncomfortable with the lack of a firm Israeli commitment, publicly or behind closed doors, to meet their remaining expectations.
They say that in talks in the coming days, the Americans hope to satisfy Palestinian objections by issuing a statement declaring the 1967 lines the basis for negotiations, and the United States will attempt to compel the Israelis to endorse their note.
Israeli officials have in public repeatedly refused to accede to the Palestinian demands, calling them preconditions on issues that must be agreed at the end, not the start, of talks.
Senior aide to the president Tayyeb Abdul Rahim, accompanying Abbas, told Reuters: "We're between two opinions: should Israel agree to stop building settlements, or should they agree to a state on the 1967 borders to go back to talks.
"What's stronger? (The second) means that all settlements are illegitimate. America is convinced of our point of view ... Israel has not yet agreed to a state on the 1967 lines, but it will go to the talks on that basis."
(Additional reporting Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Philip Barbara and Eric Beech)
(This story was refiled to change Arabic translation in the fourth paragraph to "resolution" from "solution" and fixes typo in the penultimate paragraph)
CAIRO, July 30, 2013 (WAFA - PLO news agency) –
Abbas from Cairo: US is Serious in Solving the Conflict
President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that the United States was serious in solving the Middle East
conflict and that both US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry have promised to support negotiations until there is a solution.
Abbas made these statements to Egyptian journalists before leaving Cairo later that day following a short visit during which he met President Adli Mansour and other top Egyptian officials to discuss bilateral relations, the
conflict with Israel, the situation in the Gaza Strip and reconciliation efforts between his Fatah movement and Hamas, which controls Gaza.
Abbas said negotiations with Israel, which started in Washington over the dinner table on Monday night Washington time between the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams with US presence, will be bilateral and trilateral with US participation in the beginning and will discuss all issues, including political, economic and security, but mainly political.
He said the negotiations, which will be for between six to nine months, will focus in the beginning on borders and security and will later discuss all permanent status issues such as refugees, water and other issues.
He said the issue of the pre-Oslo prisoners was a difficult one but it was possible to solve it.
He said Israel has agreed to release 104 prisoners held since before signing the Oslo accords in 1993 in three or four batches and there is now talk about release of another 250 prisoners arrested after Oslo.
Abbas commended the European Union for deciding not to deal with products made in the Israeli settlements illegally built in the occupied West Bank. He said he supports all EU decisions on this matter.
Abbas also stressed the Palestinian position of non-interference in internal Arab affairs, mainly in the internal affairs in Egypt.
“I hope the Egyptian media will understand that the majority of the Palestinian people believe in non-interference in internal Egyptian affairs and that their main goal is to get rid of the (Israeli) occupation of their
country,” he said.
Abbas spoke about the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt and about the smuggling tunnels and said that it is important to find a legal solution to the crossing that would allow reopening Rafah crossing for people and cargo as it was in 2005 when the Palestinian Authority managed it along with the European Union with Israeli approval.
He said he was opposed to the smuggling tunnels started seven years ago following the Israeli blockade on Gaza.
Abbas said he discussed the issue of the crossing and the tunnels with his Egyptian counterpart.
On reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas with Egyptian mediation, Abbas said that Egypt will remain the party overseeing reconciliation efforts until an agreement is reached.
He stressed that the negotiations that have kicked off in Washington on Monday should not affect reconciliation efforts since both should be moving alongside each other.
He said he was still eager to see the reconciliation take hold with the establishment of a unity government by the middle of next month as agreed by the two parties after which presidential and legislative elections will be
held within three months in all the Palestinian Territory. source
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Your Help Is Needed, everyone take part.
Say NO to "land swaps" and NO to releasing convicted terrorist murderers
PM certain of majority on prisoner release, but debate goes on:: If Palestinians really want peace, why demand terrorist release?:
Deputy FM: ‘Netanyahu wrong to back Palestinian state, and it’s hurting him in Likud’
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