Fatah won't negotiate without freezing eastern Jerusalem building
So we learn this week that Mahmoud Abbas and gang won't speak to Israel without surrender of eastern Jerusalem:
Not only that, Fatah's even attacked a Western Wall development project:
The Palestinian Authority will not return to peace negotiations unless Israel agrees to stop building in east Jerusalem as well as in West Bank settlements, Reuters quoted PA President Mahmoud Abbas as saying on Sunday. The comments followed Abbas's Cairo meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.Correction: won't. Egypt also appears to be part of this stand, proving that they're not very much at peace with Israel.
"Of course ... if there is no complete halt to settlements in all of the Palestinian territories including Jerusalem, we will not accept," said the PA president.
Abbas added that the US had not formally requested that the Palestinians return to the negotiating table for renewed peace talks with Israel.
The Palestinians and the Egyptians said over the weekend that they still haven’t received the full details of a US proposal to provide Israel with a package of incentives in return for freezing settlement construction in the West Bank for an additional 90 days.
Abbas was quoted by the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper as saying that there should be no linkage between freezing settlement construction and supplying Israel with weapons. He also complained that the US Administration still hasn’t come up with new ideas to revive the peace process.
The paper quoted a senior PA official as saying that US envoy David Hale, who met with Abbas in Ramallah last week, informed the Palestinian leadership that the US Administration and Israel have yet to agree on a formula for freezing settlement construction.
“We understand from Hale that all what has been published so far [about an agreement between Israel and the US] is nothing but Israeli leaks,” the official said. “President Abbas made it clear that the Palestinians can’t accept any agreement that excludes Jerusalem.”
Not only that, Fatah's even attacked a Western Wall development project:
The Palestinian Authority slammed a Sunday cabinet decision to allot NIS 85 million to a development project for the Western Wall over the next five years, AFP reported.And that's why Fatah - to say nothing of the Islamic world - would do anything to destroy all that.
Ghassan Hatib, a PA spokesperson reportedly said: "Israel does not have permission to make changes in the occupied territories, especially in Jerusalem."
"This move is preventing us from reaching an agreement, because any solution must include Jerusalem," Hatib added.
The project will upgrade physical and transportation infrastructure at the site, provide access to new archeological findings, and run educational programs for soldiers and students.
The approved plan is a continuation of another five-year project that began at the site in 2004 and, according to a statement put out after Sunday’s cabinet meeting, led to a phenomenal growth in the number of visitors to the Wall, from 2 million annually before the project began to 8 million visitors in 2009. The Wall is the most visited site in the country.
The continuation of the development project will be managed by the Prime Minister’s Office and carried out by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, with the funds coming from the Interior, Transportation, Tourism, Public Security, Defense and Education ministries, as well as from the Israel Lands Authority.
“The Western Wall is the Jewish people’s most important heritage site,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said during the cabinet discussion. “We are obligated to develop and preserve it so it can continue to be a focus for visitors and a source of inspiration for millions of visitors, tourists and children and adults from Israel and around the world.”
Labels: anti-semitism, Egypt, islam, Israel, Jerusalem, terrorism, United States
