Israeli Settlements Near East Jerusalem

"Landep News"

Israeli Settlements Near East Jerusalem

As the United Nations are expected to meet on Wednesday in order to analyze the request for statehood filed on Friday by the Palestinian National Authority, Israeli Prime Minister declared on Tuesday in an interview that his cabinet is not going to lure Mahmoud Abbas into returning to the negotiation table with the promise of freezing settlements again.

Netanyahu said that the settlement freeze has already been implemented last year for 10 months and the cabinet is not about to do it again. The comment made by the Israeli PM comes after the Quartet for the Middle East, composed of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and the Russian Federation, invited the Palestinians and Israelis to resume the negotiations.

The Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas said that the negotiations would not be resumed as long as settlements are being built on Palestinian lands, alluding to the West Bank land, where he said on Friday, on the occasion of his address to the UN, that the colonies built on the West Bank were fragmenting the region thus making it impossible for a state to be established on that territory.

Replying to this argument, Benyamin Netanyahu made a case that implies the security of Israel by saying that maintaining troops on the West Bank is no different from the NATO, which has troops in different countries. Netanyahu said that the state of Israel has only 9 miles in width, and that makes it defenseless in case of attacks.

In his interview to the Jerusalem Post the Israeli PM said that the settlement issue is just a pretext the Palestinians use to avoid negotiations. He added he had no intention of interfering with the construction of 700 new homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood, at Gilo, a project that could be approved on Tuesday.

“We plan in Jerusalem. We build in Jerusalem,” the PM said, adding that the Jews build in the Jewish neighborhoods, while the Arabs builds in the Arab neighborhoods.

Netanyahu said that the reason why the negotiations broke down last year has nothing to do with building colonies. The real reason, he said, was that the Palestinians refuse to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state.

In his address to the UN on Friday, shortly after the speech delivered by Mahmoud Abbas, Netanyahu said that colonies have been built since the Israeli state has been founded and that the Palestinian issue of colonies has not been raised since the beginning, alluding that now the Palestinians are referring to the cities, the towns and villages of Israel, when they speak of “buildings on Palestinian land.” He alluded that Abbas wants the Israeli state dismantled altogether.

According to the Israeli radio, Netanyahu is to meet on Tuesday with the Group of Eight, the most important members of the Cabinet, to discuss the proposal advanced by the Quartet.

The attitude of the Israeli government seems to leave little room for negotiations and makes the Palestinians leaders hope that the United Nations would approve their bid.

This is announced to be a long process, that could take months, and maybe years, considering that it will only be handed over the to a commission for investigation on Wednesday, when the Security Council will meet in a closed-door meeting.

The Palestinian bid needs nine votes to pass, and six countries out of the 15 members of the Security Council have already announced their support, while seven are still waiting to see the results of the commission in order to decide.

In case it comes to nine votes pro the game is not over yet, since the United States is going to be forced to veto the proposition, which would prejudice severely its policies in the Middle East, but would also kill the Palestinian bid for statehood, leaving Abbas with just a symbolic victory in the General Assembly, where some 131 states out of 193 are ready to recognize the Palestinian state.

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