Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, claims that PM Netanyahu has recommended a dozen small committees meet, each to discuss a different element of the big picture. The press reports that it is the Palestinians who have created such committees with Netanyahu objecting, saying that it is time for the leaders to hammer out their differences face-to-face.
The Arabs are consistently putting out the message to their people that Israel is not serious about a peace agreement, proven by the building okay for Gilo and Givat Zev. They have said that without a building freeze, the negotiations are a non-starter.
Erekat and other PA officials warned that the talks would be suspended if the government resumed construction in the settlements.
“If they continue with settlement construction, they will close the door to negotiations,” he cautioned.
“Settlements and peace can’t go together.”
The Palestinians hoped that Israel would do what it did in Sinai and the Gaza Strip, when it evacuated settlements, Erekat said.
“Israel destroyed settlements in the Gaza Strip and Sinai, and we hope that this experience will be repeated for the third time in the West Bank,” he said.
Netanyahu has said that should an agreement of any kind be reached there will be a comprehensive public debate, although he has not specified what exactly that means, and whether there would be a referendum or perhaps an early election.
Likud MK Danny Danon has already made his opinion clear by saying that “If the public wanted a Palestinian state within a year, they would have voted for Kadima and not Likud.”
Contrary to its earlier promises, the PA has not yet addressed the Palestinian public with the same message it has been dispatching to Israelis with the help of US funding. The PA leadership seems to be more concerned with defending its decision to enter into direct talks with Israel than to convince the Palestinians to support the renewed negotiations. They are also continuing a two-faced approach by speaking to the English and Hebrew-speaking world in one way and the Arabic speaking world in another altogether.
In Arabic, the word from Washington is that the PA leadership was forced to agree to direct talks only because of heavy pressure and threats from the US administration, the EU and some Arab governments and that continued construction in West Bank settlements and east Jerusalem neighborhoods would lead to the collapse of the peace talks.
Even aside from the building freeze issue, the PA leadership continues to insist that if Netanyahu was really serious about making peace, he should stop demanding that the PA leadership recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and should withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, including from east Jerusalem.
In short, the Arabs seem to be out to prove that they are incapable of changing either their diplomatic rhetoric or their terrorist behavior.
Same old same old.
Yitzhak and Talia Iames, Beit Hagai residents and parents of 6, were brutally murdered on Tuesday evening along with two passengers in their car, one of whom was a 37 year old pregnant woman.
Their car was sprayed with gunfire from a passing car. When their vehicle stopped, the Arabs stopped, pulled them out of the car and shot them at close range.
In an added insult, Assistant Secretary Philip J. (P.J.) Crowley spoke of spoke of "external players", saying that they are "trying to influence the [peace] process".
How many times have versions of this excuse for the barbarous behavior of Arabs in Israel been made following bloody, murderous hate crimes of terror against innocent Jews?
Israel awaits the response from Prime Minister Netanyahu who is at this moment sitting in Washington with Obama having his arm twisted in the most undiplomatic of ways by one of the most unfriendly US presidents since the creation of the State of Israel.
Meanwhile, Yesha leadership has unified in a call for every Yesha community whose building plans are developed enough to do so to go forward with full strength immediately. Yesha will not wait for further word about the undemocratic building freeze to be over. The date has passed. The Zionist answer to Arab terror has always been and continues to be the positive growth of the Jewish presence in every inch of the Jewish Homeland.
Wednesday, at 6 p.m. Israel time, building will begin in earnest in at least three locations:
Kedumim
Adam
Kiryat Arba
Beit Hagai
Naftali Bennet, Director General of The Yesha Council, put it best when he said that "they murder and we build. We each do what we do best."
In response to the atrocity committed near Beit Hagai by Israel's so-called peace partners, building was renewed in Yesha Wednesday, September 1st.
At 6 p.m. building began in Kedumim and Adam.
As a result of the lengthy funeral in Beit Hagai for the four Jews murdered by Arab gunfire, renewed building wa put off there until the following day.
Wide national and international coverage of the building renewal was found in both locations on Wednesday. The message was clear at home and abroad, especially in Washington where PM Netanyahu began talks with Abbas.
In this last week of the Jewish year, Yesha residents, proud Israelis and Israel supporters around the world look forward to a year of development, growth and spiritual prosperity in Yesha and every community in Israel as the Zionist imperative and the answer to the hate crime of terror wherever it strikes.
