Surprise: 'Settlement freeze' to be extended
I predicted this would happen. The Obama administration is believed to have received private assurances from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that should the Palestinians agree to go into direct talks by the end of the month, then Israel would extend a partial moratorium on West Bank Jewish settlement construction currently due to expire in September.What could go wrong?
“I think everyone knows [direct talks] are going to happen,” said the American Task Force for Palestine’s Hussein Ibish. “There’s a sense of urgency about [securing agreement for direct talks] by the end of August because the settlement moratorium [expiration] starts kicking in [after that] and they don’t want [that issue] to come back.”
Any such understandings on restraint on settlement activity and other confidence building measures between Washington and Jerusalem have “to be implicit and under the table,” Ibish continued. “It’s all based on what you do, and not on what you say.”
“There are limits” that have been agreed, however, “and it’s been communicated to the Palestinians that it’s a quid pro quo, they have to come back to direct negotiations … and they know that.”
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:18 PM
2 Comments:
It all depends on whether direct talks will actually happen. The PA appears to be in no hurry to make a decision to attend them.
Settlement activity was not defined as a violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords or their subsequent implementation agreements. If the U.S. is now seeking to constrain Israeli settlement activity, it is essentially trying to obtain additional Israeli concessions that were not formally required according to Israel's legal obligations under the Oslo Accords.
Obama's rhetoric raises some serious questions.
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