Israel, Palestinians to seek path back to talks

By: Robert Berger
Topics: In The News ,; World Watch

Saeb Erekat, Palestinian chief negotiator, speaks to journalists during a press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah on January 2, 2012, regarding peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel to take place in Amman, Jordan on January 3.

(Credit: Getty)

After a long stalemate, Jordan is spearheading a new effort to revive the Middle East peace process.

Israeli and Palestinian chief negotiators will meet for the first time in more than a year on Tuesday in Amman. While it is not a formal negotiating session, officials will seek a formula for resuming peace talks that have been deadlocked over Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Israeli envoy Yitzhak Molcho will meet with teams from the Quartet of Middle East mediators - the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia.

The key sticking point remains: Palestinians say they will not return to the negotiating table until Israel halts all settlement construction, but the Israeli government has refused.

Expectations are low for the talks, and even Erekat himself says he expects no breakthrough in Jordan.

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by starving1968-3 January 3, 2012 12:30 PM EST

by juwboy January 3, 2012 10:39 AM EST
"Most Jews who lived in Palestine before 1948 came over AFTER WW2"

Bull!

Only a handful of Jews entered "Palestine" between the end of WWII and 1948 BECAUSE THE BRITS, in a prewar agreement with the Arabs that was never rescinded, WOULDN'T ALLOW ANY IN -- one of the reasons for blowing up the King David Hotel -- another was the Brits sending concentration camp survivors back to Poland, where they were killed on arrival by Poles who blamed them for starting the war.

The Jews only owned 12.5% of the land in 1947.

You're claim is that they had a huge population living on that tiny bit of land BEFORE they started stealing the land from the Palestinians?

Yeah, okay......

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by DovBenMen January 3, 2012 2:18 PM EST: Why not cut the bravado and just post the immigration data for the years starting before 1917? It is freely available. To my recollection, it doesn't support your view or assertions.

And that is a fair rule of the road, here. Unless your asserted "facts" can be proved, they are false diatribe.

You might stick to opinions, which you are of course entitled to harbour. You do not do very well with facts.

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan


by closethippy1 January 3, 2012 10:01 AM EST: Who We Are And Who We Are Not

By 1948 all the countries that surround Palestine had gained their independence and delineated their borders in their respective constitutions.

That, in itself, defined Palestine.

Never mind the name was first coined by the Greek historian Herodotus around 400BC, never mind every map drawn ever since called the area Palestine, never mind the British calling their administration of that territory the Mandate for Palestine in which article 25 makes it clear no other territories will be added to it, including Transjordan for which the British established a totally separate administration for it.

And never mind the cities of Jerusalem, Meggido, Ashkelon, Jericho, Hebron, Shiloh, Beershebah, Bethel, etc. were ALL FOUNDED, BUILT AND CREATED BY THE CANAANITES AT LEAST 800 YEARS BEFORE ANY JEWS SET FOOT ON THEM.

Most Jews who lived in Palestine before the 1948 War came over AFTER WW2.

When the Arabs came to our aid during that war it was after the Zionist terrorist groups had already expelled over 300,000 Palestinians. These terror groups were so ruthless they managed to expel an additional 500,000 Palestinians and erase over 400 Palestinian villages and towns even after the Arabs intervened.

The state of Israel was established with the help of its terror groups (the Irgun, the Hagannah, the Lehi, the Stern Gang, etc) all of whom had members who either were elected as Prime Ministers of Israel, or chosen to became members of the cabinet by the ruling parties.

Israel didn't have a Prime Minister who was born in Israel until 1996, and by then 7 of the 9 PMs it had were all born outside of Palestine.

The reason we didn't establish Palestine when Gaza was under Egyptian control and the West Bank under Jordanian control was because we wanted to keep the integrity of Palestine as articulated in the 1964 PLO Charter:

"Article 21. The Palestine people believes in the principle of justice, freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, human dignity, and the right of peoples to practice these principles. It also supports all international efforts to bring about peace on the basis of justice and free international co-operation."

"Article 22. The People of Palestine believe in peaceful coexistence on the basis of legal existence, for there can be no coexistence with aggression, nor can there be peace with occupation and colonialism."

And even if we did establish a state back then Israel would have gone ahead with its goal of conquering all of Palestine and "transfering the Palestinians" as they've been saying in everyone of their Zionist manisfestos since the late 1800's, starting with The Jewish State by Theordor Herzl.

Damn if we do, and damn if we don't.

The best peace offer Israel ever made would have that country in complete control of all the borders of Palestine, all of its airspace, all of its coastline, and over 80% of its water resources.

International law calls for the end to all military occupation within reasonable time regardless of how the occupied people feel about it, including Hamas.

Hamas is a political party just like all the other Israeli political parties that call for the expulsion of Palestinians or the prevention of a Palestinian state and that run in every Israeli election and have been part of pretty much ever Israeli cabinet.

Hamas is made up of people who have been born into a ruthless military occupation, have gone to school, married and work under it and who're now watching their children and grandchildren and great granchildren being born, going to school, marrying and working (if at all possible) under the same ruthless military occupation.

You gotta have some balls to invalidate our existance in Palestine, question our humanity, tell us what our history is and is not, who we are and who we are not, and what belongs and doesn't belong to us.; Reply to this comment


by starving1968-3 January 3, 2012 9:20 AM EST: Yawn.

Wake me when they've finally went to war and one side has finally finished the other off.

And no - I don't care which side "wins". I just want this BS over with once and for all.; Reply to this comment


by dickjones3 January 3, 2012 7:46 AM EST: Time for a 'jewish spring'??? (since the US is taking over the middle east with the 'arab springs', might as well get all of the trouble makers over there all at once this year!)...yes, a glass parking lot in the middle east would make this world a better place.; Reply to this comment


by dickjones3 January 2, 2012 11:49 PM EST: The Wandering Who? ...after reading this I read Mein Kampf and I'll be damned -he's right.; Reply to this comment

by morris2196 January 2, 2012 11:32 AM EST

What is there to talk about? Israel has control over the West Bank, and is using it for it's own purposes, and there is no one in the region that can stop them.

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by earth5645 January 2, 2012 4:19 PM EST: It has control of the West Bank for a reason. Read into the history of the 6 day War and the Arabic rejections for peace following it.