RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinians dug in ahead of a crucial meeting today with Washington’s Mideast envoy, saying they can’t be expected to continue peace talks unless Israel reverses a decision to lift restrictions on West Bank settlement construction.
Neither side seems to want the month-old talks to collapse, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are publicly at an impasse, with a Monday deadline looming.
President Barack Obama’s emissary, George Mitchell, is making a last-minute attempt to rescue the negotiations. He was to travel to Abbas’ West Bank headquarters today, after meeting with Israeli leaders Wednesday. Mitchell said after talks with Netanyahu that he is undaunted by what he described as “bumps in the road,” but offered no glimpse of a possible compromise.
AP interactive
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The European Union’s top diplomat, Catherine Ashton, announced she’s heading to the region “as a matter of priority” after talking to Mitchell and international Mideast envoy Tony Blair. Starting today, the EU foreign-policy chief will meet with Netanyahu, Abbas and Mitchell over two days to try to prevent the collapse of negotiations. She reiterated in a statement that the European Union regrets Israel’s decision not to extend a 10-month-old moratorium on West Bank housing starts that expired this week.
Netanyahu has said extending the construction curb could fracture his pro-settlement governing coalition, but has also said he wants to keep negotiating with Abbas. Obama wants a deal on the terms of a Palestinian state alongside Israel within a year.
Abbas’ advisers stopped short of posing an ultimatum Wednesday, but signaled they would accept nothing less than an extension of the moratorium. Veteran Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath said Israel should be blamed for any breakdown of the negotiations if it insists on expanding settlements on lands claimed by the Palestinians for their state.
Abbas on Wednesday was quoted as saying, without elaborating, that he is ready to make a “historic decision” when Arab League foreign ministers meet Monday in Cairo to review the negotiations.
On Saturday, Abbas will consult top officials from his Fatah Party and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s decision-making body before sitting down with the Arab officials.
Hanna Amireh, a member of the PLO body, said there was widespread opposition to resuming talks without a settlement curb.
However, in the end the decision is up to Abbas.
Abbas’ Hamas rivals, who seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, would benefitfrom the talks’ failure as a reflection of their position that nothing can be gained by negotiating with Israel.
In comments published Wednesday on the website of the pro-Hamas newspaper Felesteen, Hamas’ Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar renewed his call to Abbas to quit the negotiations.
Meanwhile, Palestinian human-rights groups sharply criticized a U.N. resolution - backed by their own government - that delays action on a report alleging war crimes during the 2009 Gaza conflict.
The vote Wednesday by the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council effectively freezes the “Goldstone report,” which had called on Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to probe and prosecute any war crimes or face scrutiny by the International Criminal Court.
“This resolution is a betrayal of victims’ rights,” said Maysa Zorob of the Palestinian group Al-Haq. Nearly 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during Israel’s three-week incursion into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip last year.
Palestinian officials at the Human Rights Council said they were still hoping the recommendations in the report could be enforced at a later date.
Information for this article was contributed by Amy Teibel, Diaa Hadid and Frank Jordans of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 09/30/2010