Israel Matzav

By the way, what shape is the table going to be?

For those too young to remember, I discussed the shape of the table in the Paris peace talks that were supposed to end the Vietnam war here. When it comes to Israel and the 'Palestinians,' the shape of the table may be the only thing about which there has thus far been no argument.

This time "all of the issues that are at the core of a permanent accord will be negotiated simultaneously", Silvan Shalom, a member of Prime Minister Binyamin Netayahu's cabinet and rightist Likud party, told Army Radio.

The Palestinians, with international backing, want their future state to have borders approximating the boundaries of the West Bank, adjacent East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip before Israel captured them in the 1967 Middle East war.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top official in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization, said the US letter of invitation to the Washington talks had not specified which disputes were to be discussed.

But Abed Rabbo told Voice of Palestine radio the talks "will begin, in principle, on the issues of borders and security".

...

"Had the matter of borders and territory been given over, what incentive would they (Palestinians) have had to make concessions on the matter of refugees or Jerusalem?" Shalom asked.

Israel deems all of Jerusalem its capital - a status rejected internationally - and wants to keep West Bank settlement blocs under any peace accord. It quit Gaza in 2005 and that enclave is now ruled by Hamas Islamists hostile to the Jewish state and opposed to Abbas's peace strategy.

Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war of Independence, along with millions of their descendants, claim the right to return to their original homes in what is now Israel. The Israelis rule that out as demographic suicide, saying the refugees should resettle in a future Palestine or elsewhere.

As if those weren't enough problems, it seems that Kerry really is going to make radical Leftist Martin Indyk the US representative to the talks.

US Secretary of State John Kerry announced Monday that former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk will be Washington's Middle East peace envoy.

The appointment comes as Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are to resume Monday evening for the first time in three years, following an intense effort by Kerry to bring both parties together.

Last week, Israel strongly protested Kerry's plan to appoint Indyk. That protest was ignored. Kerry expects the co-chairman of the radical Leftist New Israel Fund, whose grantees provided 92% of the lies in the Goldstone Report, to suddenly play the roll of an honest broker.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, John Kerry, Judea and Samaria, Martin Indyk, Middle East peace process, Palestinian state, Sylvan Shalom

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:21 PM