THE MIDDLE EAST DEADLOCK
UN chief Antonio Guterres urges Israel to drop annexation plans
Secretary-general says such a move will be 'devastating' for hopes of fresh talks and an eventual two-state solution.
"Any decision on sovereignty will be made only by the Israeli government," Israel's UN envoy Danny Danon said in a statement on Tuesday.
Netanyahu: Israel has learned never to rule out preemptive strikes
At Yom Kippur War memorial, Prime minister says experience has taught 'never to underestimate the enemy' and that 'peace is achieved through force.'
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday in a hint to Iran that Israel had learned from its lessons in the 1973 Yom Kippur War "not to underestimate the enemy, not to ignore the dangers and not to give up on preemptive strikes."
"Back than we paid the price of self-illusion," Netanyahu said. "We will not make this mistake again."
Netanyahu also pointed out that "peace is achieved through force," as exemplified by the fact that in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur war, Israel signed peace treaties with both Egypt and Jordan.
"Peace is achieved when hostile countries around us understand that Israel is strong and refuses to be uprooted."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.552557
PM: Palestinians set preconditions to avoid talks
Netanyahu says he told Kerry that Palestinians are "intentionally insisting on preconditions" to prevent peace negotiations.
The Palestinians are setting preconditions to avoid talks, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday.
Netanyahu explained that he told US Secretary of State John Kerry several times that nothing is stopping him from starting peace talks - except for preconditions.
"The Palestinians are intentionally insisting on preconditions that we cannot abide in order to prevent the start of negotiations," Netanyahu said. "As far as I'm concerned, setting preconditions is an obstacle that cannot be passed."
Every time the government gave the Palestinians what they demanded as preconditions for talks, they made additional demands, the prime minister stated.
Negotiations for peace are likely to be difficult, he added, but the only other choice is a binational state, "an idea that is not good for the State of Israel, to say the least."
Any Palestinian state must be demilitarized and secured by the IDF, the prime minister said.
Israel official says government won't accept Palestinian state in '67 lines
A senior Israeli official on Sunday said that the ruling Likud Party will not accept a Palestinian state with the borders favored by the Palestinians and the international community, a new hurdle to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's effort to restart peace talks in his latest visit to the region.
Anger in Israel over EU comments on school shooting
The European Union foreign policy chief drew criticism in Israel on Tuesday over what Israeli leaders said was her comparison of the killing of four Jews at a school in France with the deaths of children in the Gaza Strip.
Speaking at a conference on Palestinian refugees on Monday in Brussels, Catherine Ashton cited the tragedy of "young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances".
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/20/us-israel-eu-ashton-idUSBRE82J0OB20120320
PM: Fatah-Hamas deal will end diplomatic process
Netanyahu says Abbas signing reconciliation deal with Hamas shows he is "abandoning" peace.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu blasted the emerging reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah on Monday, sending a clear message to the international community that if it is consummated, the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process is over.
One reason for Netanyahu’s sharp response to reports of a deal – he made it a point to make his remarks both in Hebrew and in English – was to get the international community to pressure Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas not to implement it, one government official acknowledged.
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=256749
'If Abbas embraces Hamas, he is walking away from peace'
Israel slammed the Palestinian deal paving the way for Hamas to join the PLO on Thursday, with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev saying that if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas "embraces Hamas, if he walks toward Hamas, he is walking away from peace."
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=250613
Iran rejects two-state solution for Palestine
Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, says Palestinian bid for statehood at UN is doomed to fail.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has assailed a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, saying the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations is doomed to fail.
Any plan to divide a Palestinian state would be unacceptable, Khamenei said on Saturday, adding that such a state could exist temporarily as part of "liberated territory".
"Our claim is freedom of Palestine, not part of Palestine. Any plan that partitions Palestine is totally rejected," Khamenei told the gathering. "Palestine spans from the river [Jordan] to the [Mediterranean] sea, nothing less."
He added that the Palestinians should not limit themselves to seeking a country within the occupied West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip which would implicitly recognise Israel because "all land belongs to Palestinians."
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, reacted angrily to Khamenei's speech.
"The declarations of hatred from the ayatollah regime on the intention to destroy the state of Israel reinforces the government's steadfast position for the security needs of Israel's citizens and the demand for recognition of Israel as the Jewish state," Netanyahu said.
Khamenei, who spoke at a pro-Palestinian conference in Tehran, called Israel a "cancerous tumour" that should be removed.
Iran supports the Palestinian Hamas group, which rules Gaza and which does not back the statehood bid pushed by Abbas and his Western-backed Fatah movement.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/201110222010936488.html
Israel risks Middle East isolation, warns US official
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15146202
Palestinian UN bid: Obama to meet Abbas and Netanyahu
US President Barack Obama will urge his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas to drop a bid for UN recognition of statehood later on Wednesday.
Mr Obama will also meet Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu amid frantic diplomacy aimed at averting a crisis.
The US president has vowed to veto the bid, backing Israel's view that direct talks offer the only route to peace.
'Two states'
The quartet aims to give the two sides a year to reach a framework agreement, based on Mr Obama's vision of borders fashioned from Israel's pre-1967 boundary, with agreed land swaps.
The statement would also endorse the idea of "two states for two peoples, Jewish and Palestinian", according to the AP news agency.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14997936
Republicans criticise Obama over Israel
Republican White House hopefuls have hit out at President Barack Obama's Middle East policy, as Palestinians prepare a bid for UN membership.
Texas Governor Rick Perry branded the president's policy of giving equal standing to Israeli and Palestinian grievances "misguided and dangerous".
'Israel thrown under bus'
Both the US and Israel say only direct talks can lead to peace, but Palestinians say years of on-off negotiations have left them nowhere. Mr Abbas says he will submit a formal bid on Friday.
The Palestinians are seeking international recognition of their state based on the borders that existed in 1967, which would take in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14997531
US scraps demand for Israel settlements freeze
The United States is abandoning efforts to persuade Israel to renew a freeze on settlement-building as part of efforts to revive Middle East peace talks.
A senior US official told the BBC that attempts to get Israel to renew a partial freeze on settlement construction in occupied territory had failed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11943599
Israeli doubts about Mahmoud Abbas
Tzipi Livni had little confidence in the Palestinian president, and Egypt promised to "apply pressure" to weaken Hamas.
The leader of Israel's main opposition party "doubts" that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas would agree to a peace treaty, and the Egyptian government has applied pressure to isolate Hamas, according to several US diplomatic cables released on Sunday.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/usembassyfiles/2010/11/20101128202754616796.html
Clinton warns against unilateral steps in Middle East peace process
U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton on Wednesday warned against unilateral steps by Israel or the Palestinians as the direct peace talks between the two sides have been stuck in a limbo.
"Negotiations between the parties is the only means by which all of the outstanding claims arising out of the conflict can be resolved," Clinton told reporters at a joint press conference with visiting Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit.
"So we do not support unilateral steps by either party that could prejudge the outcome of such negotiations," Clinton said.
"Each party has a very strong set of opinions about the way forward. There can be no progress until they actually come together and explore where areas of agreement are and how to narrow areas of disagreement," she said.
Clinton still believed that both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas want to see a peace deal to be reached.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-11/11/c_13601285.htm
Netanyahu wants to extend Israel loyalty oath to Jews
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to include Jews in a bill that so far requires only non-Jews to swear loyalty to the country as a Jewish state when taking Israeli citizenship.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11571064
Netanyahu: Palestinians may target airport
Prime minister warns security arrangements key to any peace deal with Palestinians. 'Imagine if missiles could take down planes on way to airport,' he says, adding that settlement construction is 'artificial barrier'
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Likud Party members Monday he feared an agreement with the Palestinians that did not include adequate security arrangements.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3971180,00.html
Hamas MP Hathem Qufishe arrested in West Bank
Israeli soldiers have arrested an MP from the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the West Bank.
A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Mushir al-Masri, accused Israel of trying to "quash the legitimate representatives" of the Palestinian people.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11567734
Abbas delays decision on talks
Palestinian president holds back from quitting talks with Israel as Netanyahu allows construction freeze to end.
Israel's 10-month moratorium on settlement construction has ended despite international pressure to extend it, sparking fears for the future of Middle East talks.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, held back on Monday from quitting the process, saying instead that he would first consult with other regional leaders about how to respond.
"We will not have any quick reactions," he said and added that he would weigh his options with the 22-member Arab league next week.
"After this chain of meetings, we might publish a position that clears up the position of the Palestinian and Arab people after Israel has refused to freeze settlements."
He also urged Netanyahu to extend the moratorium by at least three months in an effort to allow talks to continue.
The Palestinian leader had repeatedly warned that the talks that were relaunched at the beginning of the month might collapse if Israel resumed building in the occupied territory.
Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Paris said Abbas' call for an extension on the moratorium appeared a "desperate measure".
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/2010927124355488501.html
Israeli raid on Gaza aid flotilla broke law - UN probe
Israel's military broke international laws during a raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a UN Human Rights Council investigation says.
Its report said the action by commandoes, which left nine dead, was "disproportionate" and "betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality".
It said there was clear evidence to support prosecutions against Israel for "wilful killing".
Israel insists its soldiers acted in self-defence during the 31 May raid.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11393836
UN body backs flotilla report
Human Rights Council endorses criticisms but does not call for a criminal investigation into raid on Turkish ship.
The United Nations Human Rights Council has endorsed a fiercely critical report on Israel's raid on an aid flotilla that tried to reach the Gaza Strip in May, but stopped short of pressing for an international criminal inquiry.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/09/201092917475129965.html
Reasserting the Jewish tradition of defending injustice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/30/gaza-israel-jewish-boat
Quartet to urge settlement freeze
Draft statement of diplomatic bloc calls on Israeli PM to extend moratorium due to expire at the end of September.
The Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators is set to call on Israel to extend its settlement moratorium, in a bid to map out a peace deal within the next year.
According to a draft statement seen by the Reuters news agency on Tuesday, the Quartet, comprising the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, would pile further pressure on Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to extend the 10-month settlement freeze due to expire at the end of September.
"The Quartet noted that the commendable Israeli settlement moratorium instituted last November has had a positive impact and urged its continuation," the statement read.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/20109214206491887.html
Israel FM proposes redrawing border
Avigdor Lieberman says peace deal should allow Israel to incorporate settlements, while excluding Arab citizens.
Israel's foreign minister has said that a future peace deal with the Palestinians should centre around redrawing his country's borders, proposing to exclude some of the country's 1.3 million Arab citizens.
Avigdor Lieberman told reporters on Sunday that Israel's future borders should incorporate Jewish settlements, while placing Arab villages in Israel on the Palestinian side.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/20109191584276104.html
Palestinians and the 'Jewish state'
If Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state they would be effectively legitimising their own dispossession.
Avigdor Lieberman is at again. The right-wing Israeli foreign minister wants the Palestinian Authority (PA) to effectively accept the expulsion of Palestinian-Israelis (or Israeli-Arabs as they are known inside Israel) as part of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Speaking to a government committee on Sunday, Lieberman said that the guiding principle of the current Palestinian-Israeli negotiations should be the exchange of land and populations and not land for peace. In other words a peace treaty should involve the Israeli annexation of heavily populated Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the PA taking the Palestinian population of Israel into territories under its jurisdiction.
He explained that since both the Arabs and the Palestinians have refused to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, the status of the Arabs in Israel should be the focus of the negotiations.
Lieberman is often at odds with other Israeli officials over some of his extremist views, but these statements are consistent with the essence of Israel's insistence that the Palestinians accept Israel as a Jewish state.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/2010/09/201091914540375557.html
Israel to end settlement moratorium
Israeli PM says current restrictions on building in West Bank to end, but indicates possible limits on future building.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has said the current restrictions on the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank will not remain in place, though there will be some limits on future construction.
Israel's 10-month freeze on new settlements construction in West Bank expires at the end of this month and is a key point of contention in newly launched peace talks with the Palestinians.
"The Palestinians demand that after September 26, there will be zero building [in the West Bank] will not happen," Netanyahu told Tony Blair, envoy of the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators, on Sunday.
He said Israel would not build "tens of thousands of housing units that are in the pipeline, but we will not freeze the lives of the residents."
The prime minister did not provide details or timelines, but his statement means the ban on new housing starts would be at least partially lifted.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/09/2010912201832209651.html
Israel official: Netanyahu to offer Palestinians partial settlement freeze
The Palestinians have said they will quit the talks if the settlement freeze does not continue, and a senior Palestinian source says this remains their firm position.
Shin Bet chief: Hamas will use terror to thwart talks
Hamas has instructed its military wing to resume terrorist attacks to try to foil the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the head of the Shin Bet security service, Yuval Diskin, told the cabinet yesterday.
Diskin said terrorism has decreased in the West Bank in the past three years, but this era was coming to a close. "In the coming period, the terror threat will increase in step with developments in the peace process," Diskin said.
Obama: Israeli-Palestinian peace talks might focus first on possible borde
President Obama on Friday signaled that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators might begin their peace talks by focusing on the potential border between the two states in order to overcome conflicts over Israeli settlement growth on the West Bank.
Describing his efforts to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to extend the 10-month moratorium, which expires this month, Obama told reporters during a news conference: "Ultimately, the way to solve these problems is for the two sides to agree what's going to be Israel, what's going to be the state of Palestine. And if you can get that agreement, then you can start constructing anything that the people of Israel see fit in undisputed areas."
The borders-first approach has drawn increasing attention from Middle East experts, and has been endorsed by such Arab figures as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Then-President George W. Bush angered Palestinians in 2004 when he gave then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a letter stating that Israel could expect to keep major settlement blocks as part as any peace deal, but increasingly officials think that identifying upfront the settlement areas Israel could keep would reduce settlements as a source of tension between the two sides.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091006544.html
Netanyahu: There is no guarantee that talks will succeed
PM gives Rosh Hashana address to nation; states that there are many obstacles and reasons to doubt peace is possible, but attempting to reach an agreement is a necessity; "we are trying sincerely but not naively."
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said that while the opening of direct talks with the Palestinians is an important step towards drafting a framework peace agreement, there is no guarantee that negotiations will succeed. The comments came in Netanyahu's Rosh Hashana address to the nation.
"There are many obstacles, there are many doubters, there are many reasons for doubt; however, it is a necessity that we attempt to obtain peace, and we are trying, sincerely but not naively."
Netanyahu stated that any agreement would be based on security and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=187448
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks "show-off, ineffective": Iranian MP
The spokesman for the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Kazem Jalali said Sunday that Israel-Palestine peace talks are "show-off and ineffective," the English language satellite Press TV reported.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-09/05/c_13479637.htm
Clinton warns of 'last chance' for Mid-East peace talks
The US secretary of state has said the current round of Mid-East peace talks may be "the last chance for a very long time" to resolve the conflict.
In a joint interview with Israeli and Palestinian media, Hillary Clinton said failure would embolden "the forces of destruction" on both sides.
Time was "not on the side" of Israeli and Palestinian hopes, she added.
Mrs Clinton spoke after Israeli and Palestinian leaders began their first direct peace talks in nearly two years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11184201
Can Netanyahu manage expectations?
Israeli premier's familiar dilemma: Catering to his right-wing base in Israel at the cost of raising international ire.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is once again in the position of pledging a commitment to peace with Palestinians while resuming the construction of settlements in disputed territories. The talks, which are dismissed by many as posturing and lauded by few as a sustained challenge of Israel's policies by the US, are the second round under the Obama administration.
Hamas said no one mandated to give up Jerusalem as Abbas leaving for direct talks
The Gaza Strip ruler Hamas movement said the Palestinian negotiators are not mandated to surrender Jerusalem or any part of the Palestinian territories when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to commit to direct peace talks with Israel.
"Palestinians across the globe will not support any movement holding absurd talks with Israel," Haneya said, adding "the prisoners, the injured and the families of martyrs will not authorize anyone who wants to give up Palestine and Jerusalem after they have sacrificed and struggled for years to keep it."
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/27/c_13466387.htm
Hamas: Talks with Israel fatal
The exiled leader of Hamas has warned that talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority could be a 'fatal blow' to the Palestinian cause, and urged the Egyptian and Jordanian leaders to boycott them.
Khaled Meshaal, who lives in exile in Syria, said that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, was too weak to stand up to Israel and negotiate a fair deal at the upcoming talks in Washington.
"If the talks succeed, they will succeed to Israeli standards and liquidate the Palestinian cause. They'll give us parts of 1967 lands. They'll draw the borders as they want and they'll confiscate our sovereignty," Meshaal said in a speech in Damascus on Tuesday.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/08/2010824202513336792.html
Mideast peace would thwart Iran ambitions: Obama aide
President Barack Obama's administration said on Wednesday that progress toward Middle East peace would help thwart Iran's ambitions by preventing it from "cynically" using the conflict to divert attention from its nuclear program.
Drawing an explicit link between Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and Washington's drive to isolate Iran, Obama's national security adviser, Jim Jones, urged bold steps to revive long-stalled Middle East negotiations.
U.S. officials hope that shared Arab-Israeli concerns about Iran can be exploited to spur old foes to help advance Israeli-Palestinian peace and restrain Tehran's nuclear activities and rising influence in the region.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63L09X20100422
Obama doubtful on Middle East peace
Barack Obama, the US president, has admitted that Washington's power to influence stalled negotations between Israel and the Palestinians in limited.
US-led peace efforts have been stymied by a dispute over Jewish settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land that has strained ties between Washington and its close ally Israel.
Internal rifts among the Palestinians have also posed challenges to the process.
"The truth is in some of these conflicts the United States can't impose solutions unless the participants in these conflicts are willing to break out of old patterns of antagonism," Obama told a news conference on Tuesday.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/04/201041323216278437.html
Barak urges end to occupation
Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, has said that his country must recognise that the world will not put up with decades more of Israeli rule over the Palestinian people.
Speaking to Israel Radio on Israel's Memorial Day on Monday, Barak acknowledged that there was no way forward in negotiations with the Palestinians other than to meet their aspirations for a state of their own.
"The world is not willing to accept - and we will not change that in 2010 - the expectation that Israel will rule another people for decades more," he said.
"It is something that does not exist anywhere else in the world.
"There is no other way, whether you like it or not, than to let them [the Palestinians] rule themselves."
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/2010419132843919286.html
U.S. security official: No new concrete Mideast peace plan
Earlier this week there had been reports saying that the administration was poised to offer a new U.S. peace proposal to Israel and the Palestinian Authority that would build on understandings reached at Camp David, Maryland, in 2000.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1161967.html
Framing Obama's peace framework
The leak is now credible. The New York Times has confirmed what the Washington Post published a day earlier: the Obama administration is considering proposing its own framework for a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Frustrated by its failure to freeze Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, and subsequent failure to get the negotiations back on track, the US government is putting the two parties on notice: Define the contours of a solution by autumn and negotiate its details, or we shall do it for you.
The Obama administration and the US military have expressed concern that a deadlocked peace process, against the backdrop of tension and violence in Palestine, are endangering US lives in the Islamic world.
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/imperium/2010/04/08/framing-obamas-peace-framework
Israeli minister says U.S. boosts Arab hardliners
The Obama administration's pressure on Israel to curb settlement activity will bolster Palestinian hardliners and hinder peace efforts, a senior Israeli cabinet minister said Monday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62S15C20100329?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
Palestinian official: U.S. bid to revive Mideast talks at dead-end
The United States has reached a dead end in its attempts to revive Middle East peace talks, a senior Palestinian official said on Tuesday.
The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority has demanded a full halt to Israeli settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank before any resumption of negotiations suspended since December 2008.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1161137.html
Netanyahu aide: Israel reached understanding with the U.S.
Israel has reached an understanding with the U.S. government, said the spokesman of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Nir Hefez, in an interview with Army Radio on Friday.
Hefez said that Netanyahu had reached a "list of understandings" on policy toward Palestinians with U.S. President Barack Obama in their talks in Washington.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1159302.html
Netanyahu leaves US ties unresolved
The US and Israel have failed to resolve a diplomatic crisis sparked by Israel's housing plans for East Jerusalem, despite a high-level visit to the US by Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/03/201032542257405710.html
Arab ministers agree Jerusalem fund
Arab foreign ministers meeting in Libya have agreed to raise a fund of $500m to support Palestinians living in Jerusalem.
The ministers, who are in the Libyan city of Sirte ahead of an Arab League summit over the weekend, hope the fund will help counter Israel's settlement drive within the Holy City.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/20103266224278258.html
UN rights body censures Israel
The United Nations Human Rights Council has passed three resolutions condemning Israel over its policies in occupied Palestinian and Syrian territories.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/03/2010324194843763504.html
PA set on UN bid unless Israel meets their terms
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday set two conditions for abandoning his plan to ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state in September: acceptance of the 1967 lines as the basis for a two-state solution and a cessation of settlement construction.
“Without this we will continue going to the UN,” Abbas said.
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=235649
Abbas Affirms Palestinian Bid for U.N. Membership
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said Monday that he was going to the United Nations this month to seek membership for a state ofPalestine, not instead of negotiations with Israel, but in addition to them. His goal, he said, was for a Palestinian state and Israel to live in peace and security next to one another.
Even after any recognition by the United Nations, Mr. Abbas said, his hope is to negotiate with Israel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/world/middleeast/06palestinians.html
PM would accept pre-’67 lines as baseline for talks
With the Palestinians set to seek recognition of statehood at the UN in just a number of weeks, Israel said Tuesday it would be willing to accept the 1967 lines as a framework for talks as part of a package in which the Palestinians would recognize Jewish state.
Israeli officials said this framework would be a package deal whereby Israel would agree to entering negotiations using the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed upon swaps, as the baseline of talks; and the Palestinians would agree that the final goal of negotiations would be two states, a Palestinian one and Jewish one.
Israel, according to the official, has made clear that it would agree to language in the framework that would reflect the ideas of US President Barak Obama’s two speeches on the Middle East in May in which he first used the 1967 lines, with swaps, as a baseline for a return to talks.
Jerusalem, while not endorsing the 1967 lines, would agree to language that would say that Israel recognizes that this is the position of the international community. The willingness to show this degree of flexibility, the official said, would be contingent on the Palestinians demonstrating flexibility of their own and endorsing language nodding at recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
The Palestinians have so far opposed the inse