YESTERDAY’S MEETING in Jerusalem between Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US envoy George Mitchell had been billed as the start of indirect proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians, mediated by the US.
But the official resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations will have to wait a few more days.
Palestinian officials stressed that the Palestinian side could only participate once the executive committees of the mainstream Fatah party and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) give the green light. Both bodies are expected to convene in the West Bank at the weekend to endorse the process.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to meet Mr Mitchell in Ramallah tomorrow before the formal Fatah and PLO endorsement.
Ahead of yesterday’s talks in Jerusalem, Mr Abbas warned that the indirect talks with Israel could quickly collapse if they do not focus on the core issues.
“Negotiations will focus on final status issues and there’s no need to enter into details and small matters because we have had enough of that in the previous negotiations,” Mr Abbas said after talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman.
He gave the talks four months to make progress. After that, he said, he would consult the Arab League on what steps to take.
The Palestinian leader also warned that he would quit the proximity talks if Israel renewed settlement construction in the West Bank.
In a CNN interview Mr Abbas said it would be difficult to convince Israel to pull out of Palestinian lands and deal with the status of Jerusalem and the fate of refugees because Israel was represented by a “radical and stubborn” government.
Israeli officials stressed yesterday that, although both sides would be free to put forward their positions on all the core issues, there would be no agreements until direct bilateral negotiations take place.
Israeli deputy prime minister Dan Meridor warned that the framework of the proximity talks would not yield results.
Mr Meridor told the Jerusalem Post that the Palestinians were trying to avoid tough decisions and preferred an imposed solution.
“This won’t work,” he said. “I think we need to go quickly to direct talks, in which we’ll have to make tough decisions, and they will have to make tough decisions.”
Israel wants security arrangements and water issues to top the agenda of the proximity talks.
The Palestinian side wants to prioritise the question of borders and will press its claim that the demarcation line of a future Palestinian state be based on the 1967 green-line border that separated Israel from the West Bank.
Israel wants to incorporate the major West Bank settlement blocs, but the Palestinians insist that any such move must be accompanied by a land swap, with the future Palestinian state annexing a similar-sized territory from Israel.