Middle East OnlineLatest Israeli offer: not one Palestinian refugee would be granted right to return to former home in Israel.
PACIFICA - The Israeli government has admitted that its most recent peace offer to Palestinian negotiators would still leave more than 200,000 Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, Democracy Now! reported Friday.
The offer was made in talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
In meetings with US envoy George Mitchell, both Olmert and Abbas confirmed the Israeli offer would remove just 60,000 settlers of the 290,000 in the West Bank.
The remaining 230,000 settlers would stay in the large settlement blocs that nearly cut the West Bank in half.
Not a single Palestinian refugee would be granted the right to return to their former home in Israel.
Palestinians were offered an amount of Israeli land in return and shared sovereignty over parts of East Jerusalem, but the settlements are considered illegal under international law and a non-starter for many Palestinians.
Livni promises ‘maximum settlers’ on Palestinian Land
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is leading polls, has rejected any territorial ‘concession’ to the Palestinians.
And even though the offer would still ensure Israeli control over key settlement blocs, Netanyahu’s opponent, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, has distanced herself from the proposal as being too generous.
“I will advance only an agreement that represents our interests. Maintaining maximum settlers and places that we hold dear such as Jerusalem—not a single refugee will enter,” Livni said.
Israel hid settlement data
There are reports that the Israeli government has deliberately hidden its own data showing rapid construction in West Bank settlements.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports an internal government survey found construction in three out of four settlements was conducted without proper permits and, in many cases, on private Palestinian land.
The Israeli group Peace Now said this week settlement expansion grew 57 percent last year. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas told Mitchell that Israel’s blockade of Gaza and its expanding West Bank settlements are the main obstacles to peace.
“For the Israelis to continue their settlement activities and at the same time to continue trying to separate between the West Bank and Gaza, because we believe that the Israeli attacks and aggression against Gaza—one of the objective is to keep the West Bank separated from Gaza, and this cannot stand. The West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem are a single territorial unit that’s the territory of the Palestinian state, and we will spare no effort, as President Abbas told Mr. Mitchell, to pursue, with the assistance of our Egyptian brothers, the path of national reconciliation," said Saeb Erekat.
Mitchell won’t be traveling to Gaza, as the Obama White House continues the Bush administration’s boycott of the democratically elected Hamas government.
In Gaza, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh urged Obama to break with Bush policy.
“To build relations, as President Obama said, with the Arab and Islamic world stemming from mutual respect and mutual interests, we say the gate to this relationship with our Arab and Islamic world is from Palestine, from the Palestinian cause and from the need of a change in the US policy when it comes to the Palestinian rights and their suffering," said Haniyeh.
Turkish PM’s words to Israeli President
In Davos, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out of a panel discussion Thursday after a heated exchange with Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Erdogan had tried to respond to Peres’s defense of Israel’s attack on Gaza.
“When they [Hamas] fired against us, we replied, but after a great restraint, and thousands of people were killed too. They weren’t killed in a concentrated manner. So what? Doesn’t matter," said Peres.
Erdogan tried to respond but was cut off by debate moderator, Washington Post reporter David Ignatius. But Erdogan later angrily continued his response.
“You killed people. I remember the children who died on the beaches, and I remember two former prime ministers in your country who said they felt very happy when they were able to enter Palestinian territories in tanks, and they felt very satisfied with themselves. I find it very sad to see that people applaud what you have said, because there have been so many people who have been killed, and I think that it is very wrong, and it’s not humanitarian to applaud any actions that have had that kind of result,” said Erdogan.
