This is good news. By rejecting land swaps, it is also rejecting the Arab Peace Initiative and Obama’s formula for negotiations. So we are back to Res 242 . It has also rejected the Roadmap which calls for negotiations. Ted Belman
The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) announced Monday it would drop the “land swap” formula in negotiations with Israel.
Taysir Khalid of the PLO Executive Committee and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror organizations told Gulf News the land-swap formula was “mere talk” by Israelis and international mediators.
“We have never signed an agreement with Israel which agrees to the land swap formula,” he added. “The land swap formula is hearsay in the negotiation track.”
PA negotiators, Khalid said, must reach an agreement on borders and arrange for the withdrawal of Israeli troops – as well as settling other final status issues – before any “land swap” can be discussed.
“It is time for this mistake to get corrected,” he stressed.
PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat has already demanded Israel agree to the pre-1967 lines as a basis for a future PA state before negotiations can begin. He has also demanded Israel implement a second building freeze in the ‘disputed territories’ as a precondition for talks.
Israel has said it is ready to resume negotiations without preconditions at any time. Officials in Jerusalem have rejected a renewed building freeze noting a previous 10-month freeze aimed at meeting PA demands resulted not in resumed talks – but additional preconditions.
Setting borders before negotiations even begin, they point out, renders moot the entire point of bilateral negotiations.
Khalid also told Gulf News the PLO believes recent setback at the United Nations did not spell the end for PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ unilateral track – despite a promised US veto for his statehood application in the Security Council.
“We will seek a non-member state status for Palestine at the UN General Assembly as per the European proposal (Sarkozy Plan),” he said.
“A UN General Assembly resolution highlighting the two-state solution formula, the need to resolve the core issues, upgrading the status of Palestine to a non-member state, and the right of Palestine to be admitted to all the UN agencies will be an effective tool in Palestinian hands when they return to the UN Security Council to seek full UN membership,” he explained.
“Armed with a resolution from the UN General Assembly, it will be the ideal timing and position for the Palestinians to return to the UN Security Council seeking full UN membership,” he said.
Khalid also admitted the PA has no interest in reaching a bilateral agreement with Israel – that is, peace – and plans to continue on its current unilateral track.
“The PLO totally rejects all the conciliatory formulas offered by the Mideast Quartet. There is no room even to consider them,” he said.
rongrand -you got just right. you are always right on the nut. the world is all squirrels. i like your style.
i love your note.
mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. may the lord bless you and keep you
Laura you got that right.
The leftest are in denial.
By now the world has to know the Palestinians are not interested in peace, to the contrary they want to destroy Israel.
I ask Americans now to contact their Representative in Congress to voice their support for Israel and their efforts to reclaim the Holy Land (all of Israel) G-d has willed the Jewish people.
The idea of a Palestinian statehood in Israel is a farce.
Time for the US to stop all financial and military aid to those in the Arab world who are engaged in and support terrorism against Israel.
Let us not forget Hamas is a terrorist organization with one aim, destroy Israel.
The demise of the “peace” process is wonderful news.
When will Peres, Barak, Livni and the left admit that the “peace” process, from the point of view of the PLO, was always a sham to get back territory for nothing? Their admission would go a long way to creating jewish unoity which would create success on world stage and in realizing Israel’s self interest.
Disagree with 3 re all the names
First anything or any person to do with Oslo machinations should be ignored and that incl specifically Peres and his close associates
Enough damage has been done
Cut NGO overseas finance for lefties and incl newspapers
ANNOUNCE WE ARE BACK TO SQUARE ONE AND LET THE WAR BEGIN!
Peres and the peresites remain up there and making sure that their control over the media, police, courts amd military command remain theirs. That element will never let their sabotage plan, “the Oslo peace process” go away. Much as they fight by all means to retain NGO’s financed against the State from foreign governments. Much as they fight by all means to retain courtiers from their ranks.
That is where the people must start the process of unravelling the knot or cutting it.
Smash the unJews out of their strangle lock of the state and people.
Peresites are Peres, Itzik, Livni, Barak, Begin, Beinish, Meridor, Netanyahu… media elements, etc.
The “peace process” was dead and stinking before it was even proposed. What we are witnessing now is just one more incremental case of putrefaction — no cause for celebration. The “War Process”, meanwhile, seems to have half a chance of getting restarted. That was the only real path to peace anyway.
Now that the comatose “peace process” finally kicked the bucket, let’s celebrate the funeral.
Let’s also stop offending history, reason and law by jettisoning the convoluted diplomatic constructs of the past, which have been built on the shakiest foundations.
Let’s return to common sense and disclose the factual evidence of this century-old conflict.
Now is the time.