Senior Israeli minister to meet top Palestinian official abroad
A series of meetings between senior Palestinian and Israeli officials has recently led to significant steps by both sides intended to defuse Israeli-Palestinian tension, and these could lead to renewed negotiations, a senior official said.
Secret contacts between the senior officials, who are representing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, have been taking place for several months and are still continuing, despite official peace talks that have stagnated for over a year.
In Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office denied the report. Attempts to obtain a response from chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat were unsuccessful.
Sources say both sides have taken a number of steps over the past three months, including, on Israel’s part, a slowdown in settlement construction, in a bid to calm the situation in light of the instability spreading across the Middle East.
The steps were taken “not by agreement but as part of a reassessment of the situation in the region,” a Palestinian official said.
Palestinian measures have included halting, for the time being, applications to join UN agencies and other international bodies as part of the Palestinian statehood drive.
Israeli authorities have slowed down construction in West Bank settlements and have increased permits for West Bank Palestinians to pray at the Temple Mount over the Ramadan holy month in a bid to show real will to improve ties.
“Each side understands the other side’s needs,” a source told The Times of Israel.
While Israeli construction in the West Bank has continued, new permits for future building plans have been held up for months.
An Israeli source defined ongoing construction as continuing “natural expansion” but nothing beyond that.
Some Israeli sources attributed the slowdown to concerns over international backlash and not to understandings with the Palestinian Authority, though it was not clear if they all knew about the secret contacts between Israel and the PA.
On Monday, settler leaders accused Netanyahu of freezing construction and of telling a closed Likud meeting that he had international pressures to worry about. The Likud party denied the claim.
Senior Palestinian officials say additional steps aimed at improving trust between Netanyahu and Abbas and between Israel and the PA be taken place soon.
Among them, a senior Israeli minister is expected to meet a senior PLO and Fatah official in a foreign country, at the end of next week.
The PA also expects Israel to unfreeze some economic plans for Area C of the West Bank (where Israel is in full control). Reunification of Palestinian families and permits for the Palestinian security apparatus to purchase more arms are also apparently in the offing.
that’s what I have been saying for quite a while. They also never promised to change the Justice system and put livni in charge and do not support the bill for a change. They also never said that Jewish settlement in YS was legal and legitimate but commissioned the Levy report to let YS settlement supporters believe they would allow settlement, afterward it lay dead. They also never promised to build in E1 but made announcements to give the impression that they were going to after the election, they never did. they never promised to build in YS but BB panicked voters who supported building in YS into believing that a vote for him instead of Bennett would amount to the same, but in the end he banished Bennett to siberia and neutered him. BB also says that he will not forcefully remove settlers from YS, as was done in Gaza, but I say listen carefully: he will instead give them the choice to move voluntarily or remain as dual citizens under a pal sovereignty. Hanegbi will then remind us of what he REALLY said.
But what does BB actually do on any of these listed issues:
On the war crimes charges, which include illegal settlement, he allows the EU libelers to continue to libel Israel and help arabs build illegally in C. He has never called in any foreign ambassadors and warned them of falsely libeling Israel with charges of illegal settlement. He accepts the foreign parameters to endanger Israeli soldiers to protect enemy civilians who are themselves violating the GC. He exposes Israel to the acceptance of double standards by taking on responsibilities which no other, including the enemy , observes. His big anti war crime tactic is to withhold PA taxes to prevent them going to ICC and thereby infers that Israel is a criminal who needs to bribe his false accuser to avoid a kangaroo court… this strategy is pure BS and makes things worse because it leaves the impression that Israel committed the war crimes and that Jewish settlement is illegal and illegitimate. His strategy is stupid, fake and worthless.
On the BDS movement, what has likud and BB ever done? the only doer is shurat ha din a private org who makes likud and GOI look like toddlers. He never even says that Jewish settlement in YS is legal and legitimate. He never even calls in ambassadors from nations uttering the libels to dress them down. He never even stops the EU from illegally building for arabs in YS. HIs BDS actions are worthless, stupid and fake.
On the iran issue he has spent all his time but I cannot see why the iran issue should prevent Jewish settlement in YS. He has accomplished nothing on this issue too. But, the fact is that it cannot be a fig leaf for his non performance and fake self congratulations as a defender of settlers. If he were a defender of settlers he would not have lied to voters that a vote for him instead of Bennet would be the same. Benetts only issue is settlement in YS and BB has made sure that Bennett has nothing to do with settlement in the BB government. I think BB keeps the labor seats warm because he knows that he cannot keep his obstruction of Jewish settlement in YS a secret forever, even from his most diehard believers that he is for Jewish settlement in YS.
Hanegbi has merely corroborated what I have been saying, BB never said he would build in YS and therefore BB has stuck to his word.
Its the cat and mouse drama put on by each leader to shore up the resistance credentials of the other: Israel freezes taxes and releases them in return for abbas not going to a bogey man; Abbas threatens going to a bogey man and then retracts because Israel releases taxes. Israel stops settlement to prevent abbas going to the bogeyman and abbas stops going to bogey man because israel froze settlements, or something else. BB must show his street he is right wing but as he has never done a single thing for settlement in YS he must appear to defend Israel against all odds. How else could a person who has systematically obstructed Jewish settlement in YS win an election on the pretense that he is protecting them??????
Yes, the same high court he sustained by putting livni as justice minister and now by working against bills to change it.
But the same conditions of international pressure always exists prior to BB making promises….. so why make promises if you are not a liar, knowing full well that you will not implement those promises because instead “you will manage it wisely”.
Here is why:
there is no chance that BB could be repeatedly elected by those supporting settlement in YS and repeatedly break promises and do absolutely nothing to advance settlement in YS………. unless those supporters and voters believed repeatedly his narratives for why he NEVER does anything for settlement. This repeated game is a puppet show for suckers voting. BB proves he is willing to repeatedly break promises to achieve power and does the opposite while in power. His supporters buy his narratives that he is a brave right winger defending the cause against impossible pressure because the narrative is reinforced by the drama of Abbas, the EU and Obama. BB being in power as a right winger will authenticate any peace deal while at the same time neutering the real power of the right wing while in office. He neutered feiglin and Bennett, there is no discussion and negligible support for settlement and that is due directly to actions of BB who has moved the drama to focus on other issues away from YS.
I gave BB the benefit of the doubt for years but when I saw him use the panic attack to steal votes from Bennett I realized that his main opposition was the right. He maintains seats for the left because he knows he will lose the right at some point along the path to the deal.
HMMMMMM? Gosh, that appears to reflect exactly what he has been doing all along, while at the same time pretending and campaigning for Jewish settlement supporters. I wonder if those supporters still buy his con game?
Interesting that his “wisdom and responsibility” always arise AFTER he has reaped the benefit of a fake promise. It almost seems as if he knows he will not keep any of those promises. As long as the suckers keep buying his con a con man will keep the con going.
What is the reason to lie….to make promises knowing you will break them? why not just campaign without those right wing votes? But then he would not be in a position to control and neuter the right and especially those who support Jewish settlement in YS. He is part of the process that moves the population to center through time and habit. Soon most will not even remember where YS is. They will think it is Ariel.
New Jewish settlement in YS is DEAD thanks primarily to Netanyahu. Soon he will come out of the closet.