Israel, US close to deal for new settlement freeze
Gavin Rabinowitz
JERUSALEM, Gavin Rabinowitz- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to "soon" clinch a deal with the United States over a fresh freeze on Jewish settlement building in the West Bank, his office said on Wednesday.
In talks last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put together a package of incentives to get Netanyahu to accept a fresh 90-day moratorium on new settlement building in the occupied West Bank outside annexed Arab east Jerusalem in a bid to get peace talks with the Palestinians back on track.
Netanyahu "hopes to soon complete his contacts with the US administration in order to bring a written commitment before the cabinet," his office said.
"If the US document reflects those principles, it will be an excellent agreement for Israel and the prime minister will push determinedly for a positive decision from the cabinet," the statement said.
It came after David Hale, assistant to US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, briefed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on details of the plan at a meeting in the West Bank town of Ramallah, presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said.
It was the first time the Palestinians had been officially informed of details, but the spokesman said Hale had not presented Abbas with a solid proposal as Israel and the United States had yet to finalise terms of the deal.
"For the moment, there is no agreement. But Palestinian-American discussions are continuing and we are still awaiting the official US position on what they have agreed with the Israeli side," he told AFP.
The US package of incentives is aimed at cajoling the Jewish state into imposing a new moratorium, opening the way for a return to the negotiating table.
Direct peace talks resumed on September 2 but collapsed three weeks later with the expiry of a 10-month Israeli ban on West Bank settlement building. Abbas has since refused to rejoin the talks until a new moratorium is imposed.
Ahead of the Abbas-Hale meeting, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said that for talks to resume Israel would have to stop construction in all of the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their promised state.
"The Israelis know our position: that the key to the negotiations is in the hands of Mr Netanyahu. We hope today that he will stop settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem so we can resume negotiations immediately," he told Israel's army radio.
But the statement from Netanyahu's office reiterated Israel's longstanding position that there can be no freeze on construction in east Jerusalem.
"Jerusalem is not part of these discussions," the statement said. "The clear Israeli position during the whole process is that building in Jerusalem will continue."
Washington's aim is to bring Abbas back to the negotiating table so the two parties can begin discussing borders, commentators say.
Erakat confirmed that should a new 90-day freeze be implemented and peace talks get back on track, the focus would initially be on core issues such as borders and security.
"We said we will negotiate beginning with borders and security and that we hope to finalise them whether in three days, or three weeks or three months ... and that the settlement freeze will be done throughout," he said.
Until now, Netanyahu has avoided all talk of borders, an issue of great concern for hardliners within his cabinet.
"The whole fact of the matter is that we want to reach a two-state solution on the 1967 lines," Erakat said. "Unfortunately, Israel is the only country on earth that is not willing to recognise its borders."
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