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Israel, Palestinians dig in before Obama summit
Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:08am EDT
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By Alastair Macdonald
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel and the Palestinians accused each other Monday of thwarting U.S. efforts to revive peace negotiations, casting doubt on what President Barack Obama can achieve when he hosts their leaders at a New York summit.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Tuesday will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time since taking office in March, made clear through a spokesman he would defend Jewish settlement in the West Bank in the face of demands from Abbas -- and from Obama -- for a halt to building.
Echoing Palestinian officials who say the meeting during the U.N. General Assembly does not mean a return to a negotiating process that was suspended in December, Netanyahu ally Benny Begin said: "The summit will not mark a start to negotiations."
The cabinet minister expressed frustration with pressure from the new White House administration on its key Middle East ally to meet a 2003 commitment to stop expanding settlements:
"The United States and European nations have let the Palestinians think they will be served whatever they want along with a side order of Israel's head on a cheap McDonald's platter," he told Army Radio. "But this is not going to happen."
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said: "For the last eight months, the clear message from the international community has been that both sides need to meet their obligations."
Israel cannot "haggle its way out of" commitments, Erekat added in a statement. A settlement freeze was an Israeli obligation, he said, not a Palestinian precondition.
"PALESTINIAN INTRANSIGENCE"
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, however, said Netanyahu viewed a settlement freeze as a "bizarre" precondition and accused Abbas of shirking his own commitments under the 2003 U.S.-backed "road map" to peace. Among these were a failure to disband Palestinian militant groups, Ayalon told Reuters.
"It's only Palestinian intransigence which prevents us from moving forward," he said. "If they come down to earth and get back to their senses, I think we can really move forward."
Netanyahu has said he was ready to negotiate but not to pick up where talks, sponsored by Obama's predecessor George W. Bush, left off last year under the previous government of Ehud Olmert.
Ayalon said that process, which Palestinians want to resume to resolve core issues in the conflict, was already killed off by Abbas. He added that the hold of Abbas's Islamist rivals Hamas on the Gaza Strip was also hindering a final negotiation.
Without a change in Palestinian positions on refugees and the status of Jerusalem, Israel would rather have an "interim process" to bolster security and prosperity, Ayalon said.
OBAMA ON THE SPOT
Erekat said he still hoped Obama could "bring Israel back to the negotiating table." What was needed, he said, was a freeze on settlements and negotiations on core issues at the heart of a six-decade-old conflict which Obama says he wants to resolve. Continued...
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