Will USA-Israel terror twins let Palestine state emerge?  (Part -5)

-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL

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Israel’s pre-1967 borders for talks

Palestinians expect Americans to push for end of Israeli constructions of illegal settlements inside Palestine and recognize the Palestinians’ right to exist as a free nation without Zionist crimes and control mechanisms. Even Americans also want to make the Israel’s pre-1967 borders as a precondition for  restart of the  stalled peace talks.

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With a view to addressing the Palestinian demand from Israel, USA guarantees Israel’s pre-1967 borders would be the basis for their renewed talks with Palestine.

As part of his stated official duties, US Secretary of State John Kerry has been in Mideast for the six times in months hoping to somehow restart the talks, though he has not revealed the possible expected outcome of the talks. Kerry claims he won Arab League backing for his effort to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, raising hopes that the stalled negotiations could resume. Kerry cited significant progress in narrowing gaps between the two sides, but he triclomatically declined to elaborate.

US foreign minister John Kerry met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on July 19, 2013 in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Kerry stepped up his drive Friday to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table, facing Palestinian reluctance over his formula for resuming peace talks after nearly five years. 

 Israel's pre-1967 borders will be the basis of renewed peace talks between Palestine and Israel, according to a letter U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gave to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas which guaranteed the stipulation.

The US letter stipulated that both sides are to refrain from taking any steps that would jeopardize the outcome of the talks. After Mahmoud Abbas received the John Kerry letter, he agreed to resume peace talks with Israel. "The talks with Kerry were about to collapse, and the letter came as a lifeline in the last minute bargaining," one of the Palestinian officials said.

Kerry has spent hours with Abbas and Netanyahu trying to set the stage for a return to peace talks that foundered and collapsed in 2008. Kerry insists progress has been made, but there have been few, if any, discernible signs that the two sides are getting closer to agreeing to discuss the major issues that divide them.

Mahmoud Abbas has refused to negotiate unless Israel halts all construction in West Bank settlements. Israel has refused, saying negotiations should resume without conditions. Kerry has offered the Palestinians a package of economic incentives to restart the talks. Abbas convened a meeting of the PLO leadership to discuss the matter. Kerry and Abbas in Amman had a lengthy working dinner. After the Arab League and Abbas meetings, Kerry mentioned "very wide" and "very significant" gaps between Israelis and Palestinians that had prevented the two sides from restarting talks when his efforts began several months ago.

Final status negotiations aim to reach a deal on the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including Jerusalem, borders, the fate of Palestinian refugees and security arrangements. Talks stopped  five years ago because of Zionist arrogance and crimes, and previous efforts to revive them have stalled, particularly over Palestinian demands that Israel announce a freeze in construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which they claim as part of a future state along with Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. In Gaza, Hamas government it rejects Kerry's announcement, saying it does not recognize Abbas' "legitimacy to negotiate" on their behalf. The militant Hamas group rules Gaza, and has been at odds with Abbas since taking over the seaside strip in 2007.

Abbas and Palestinian officials said Kerry had expressed hope that some kind of framework for doing so could be reached US diplomats say the Palestinians are cooperating but it is time for the Israeli side to show the same cooperation.

The White House said in the past that Kerry would reiterate standing American positions on the goals for renewed talks, including that a Palestinian state should be negotiated on the basis of Israel's borders before the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the Gaza Strip, West Bank and east Jerusalem.

"Through hard and deliberate, patient work, and most importantly through quiet work we have been able to narrow those gaps very significantly…We continue to get closer and I continue to remain hopeful that the sides will soon be able to come to sit at the same table," said Kerry, but refused to discuss details of the proposals he laid out to the Arab officials or how the gap with the Israelis had narrowed.

Speculation has been rife for weeks that the sides would find a way to sidestep Israel's reluctance to offer assurances of the 1967 lines as the framework for talks by having the guarantee provided by the United States.

Whether for real or  as a usual bluff, Israel said it is not to issue new tenders for Jewish settlements in the West Bank, but it insists that while the Palestinians are not to pursue diplomatic action against Israel over Zionist crimes at any international organizations

[from the book: Contemporary World Politics (4)  BY DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL]