PA Will Not Negotiate With Israel Unless…
January 23, 2010 by Jason DeMars
Filed under Current Events and Prophecy
The US envoy to the Middle East was holding talks with the Palestinian leader on Friday afternoon, even as hopes that Washington could restart Israeli-Palestinian peacenegotiations anytime soon continued to fade.
US President Barack Obama’s Mideastenvoy failed Friday to lure Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas back to peace talks with Israel, as Abbas stuck to his insistence that an Israeli settlement freeze come first.
Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said following the Mitchell-Abbas meeting that the onus is on Israel, not the Palestinians.
“When we say a settlement freeze that includes Jerusalem, that is not a Palestinian condition,” he said. “That is rather an Israeli obligation, and the same thing is applicable to our demand to have negotiations resume where we left them in December 2008.”
Erekat said Mitchell appealed to Abbas to resume negotiations immediately, but the Palestinians disagreed and asked Washington “to have the Netanyahu government drop its conditions.”
Netanyahu ‘surprised’ by U.S. demand
July 20, 2009 by Jason DeMars
Filed under Current Events and Prophecy, Israel
Netanyahu explained an open city does not discriminate against Jewish housing and that Israel would not accept a stance that counters that civil right.
“Israeli Arabs are not forbidden from buying houses in west Jerusalem, and Jews must be granted the same right in the eastern part of the city,” he added.
WND has confirmed that over the weekend the State Department summoned Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to urge him to reject a permit granted to Moskowtz’s housing project.
Moskowitz purchased an eastern Jerusalem hotel. He plans to tear it down and build housing units in its place. The Jerusalem municipality earlier this month granted approval to the project, allowing for the construction of 20 apartments plus a three-level underground parking lot.
Historically, there was never any separation between eastern and western Jerusalem. The terminology came after Jordan occupied the eastern section of the city, including the Temple Mount, from 1947 until it used the territory to attack the Jewish state in 1967. Israel reunited Jerusalem when it won the 1967 Six Day War.
While the U.S. strongly protests any Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, it has been actively aiding Palestinians building illegally upon Jewish own land in eastern sections of the city, WND has exposed.
Nimer Hamad, senior political adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told WND the PA recently received guarantees against any Jewish construction in the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem taking place without the approval of the Obama administration and the Palestinians.
Last month, WND quoted a top PA negotiator stating the Obama administration told the Palestinians the “golden era” of Israeli construction in sections of Jerusalem and the strategic West Bank will soon come to an end.
“The U.S. assured us that for the first time since 1967, we are going into a period where there will not be allowed a single construction effort on the part of the Israelis in the settlements, including in Gush Etzion, Maale Adumum and eastern Jerusalem,” said the negotiator, speaking from Ramallah on condition his name be withheld.
The negotiator told WND the positions of the PA and U.S. regarding ongoing Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem “are closer than ever.”
“The U.S. used to differentiate between natural growth and adding new communities. Not anymore. No construction will be allowed, not even natural growth,” the PA negotiator said.