Kerry leads latest attempt at peace talks, seems to have royally failed

Mathloom · May 19, 2013

JERUSALEM // Israel plans to declare legal four unauthorised West Bank settler outposts, a court document showed yesterday, days before US secretary of state John Kerry returns to the region to try to restart peace talks.

Israel has been sending mixed signals on its internationally condemned settlement policy as Kerry pursues efforts to revive negotiations Palestinians quit in 2010 in anger over Israeli settlement building on occupied land they seek for a state.

In a reply to a Supreme Court petition by the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, the government said it had taken steps in recent weeks to authorise retroactively four West Bank outposts built without official permission.

"The intention to legalise outposts as new settlements is no less than a slap in the face of Secretary Kerry's new process and is blatant reassurance to settler interests," Peace Now said.
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Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/news/worl...four-west-bank-settler-outposts#ixzz2TjXGaa45

Despite the announcement and the continued settlement building, seems Netenyahu has snubbed the latest offer:

TEL AVIV // Never in its 65-year history has Israel had such an offer: normal relations with every Arab state and a possible claim to land inside the Palestinian territories.

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His trip comes after he convinced the Arab League last month to revise its 11-year-old peace initiative to include more inducements for Israel.

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"We are speaking of an opportunity that must be seized to renew the diplomatic process," said Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister who came close to brokering a peace deal with the Palestinians in 2008. "It's a very important development," he said, and urged Israeli leaders to "stop making excuses" and jump at the offer.

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Some Israeli officials have responded positively to the Arab League initiative. Tzipi Livni, the justice minister who is in charge of Israel's negotiations with Palestinians, called the offer "important".

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First proposed by Saudi Arabia at an Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002, the plan initially demanded a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories it captured during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The offer represented a milestone for Israel but it never formally responded, and the plan was overshadowed by the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which began in 2000.

In return for recognising a Palestinian state and finding a "just" solution for Palestinian refugees, the 22-member organisation would extend Israel normal relations and consider the Arab-Israeli conflict finished.

Mr Netanyahu instead appeared to snub that compromise. In a speech made shortly after the new Arab League offer, he claimed the conflict was not "territorial" and demanded that Palestinians first recognise Israel as a national state for Jews, "no matter what the borders". He did not explicitly mention the Arab Peace Initiative in his speech.

....More at link....
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Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/news/worl...elis-snub-arab-peace-initiative#ixzz2TjXiue2I

I'm not surprised, but thought it was important to discuss. Last time it was "no preconditions particularly regarding settlements" and this time they reject an even better deal even while settlement construction is allowed to continue.

If the Obama administration is interested in peace talks, where is the line? At which point do you decide to at least distance yourself from this relationship which is proving parisitic to most Americans' finances, privacy and security?

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Kerry leads latest attempt at peace talks, seems to have royally failed

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Kerry leads latest attempt at peace talks, seems to have royally failed

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