Israel Matzav

'Peace process' on edge of explosion?

Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu with US Secretary of State John Kerry after their meeting on Wednesday.

Let's go to the videotape.



The one thing on which Netanyahu seems to agree with Abu Mazen is that the 'negotiations' are making no 'progress.'

"I'm concerned about their progress, because I see the Palestinians continuing with incitement, continuing to create artificial crisis, continuing to avoid historic decisions that are needed to make a genuine peace," he said. "I hope your visit can steer them back to a place where we can achieve the historic peace we seek and that our people deserve." Netanyahu said that Israel, the Palestinians and the US agreed to certain terms three months ago that led to a resumption of the negotiations.

"We stand by those terms," he said. "We abide scrupulously by the terms of the agreements and the understandings by which we launched the negotiations."

Government officials said repeatedly over the last week that while Israel agreed to release 104 Palestinian terrorists as part of the deal to renew the talks, it made no agreement to halt settlement construction, and that both the US and the Palestinians knew that construction would continue during the duration of the negotiations.

According to this reasoning, the Palestinians are jumping on the recent announcement of new building to create an "artificial crisis" in the talks.

But Kerry left Netanyahu high and dry.

"Let me emphasize at this point the position of the United States of America on the settlements is that we consider them... to be illegitimate," Kerry said after discussions with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Kerry made the comments in responding to Palestinian frustration over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and stressed that "at no time" did the Palestinians agree to accept the settlements as a part of a negotiated peace accord.

Well, except when they did.... And Israel has never committed to stop building except during Netanyahu's freeze a few years ago.

This is one case where it would have been better not to try than to have tried and failed. Unfortunately, we Israelis are likely to pay the price for Obama's and Kerry's attempt for a legacy.

Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Jerusalem construction, John Kerry, Judea and Samaria construction, Middle East peace process, settlement freeze

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:47 AM