Diplomats Desperately Try to Save Mideast Talks

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Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times. A family of Jewish settlers in Hebron in their Sukkah built in the old Arab Market, now part of Avraham Avinu settlement.

Israel ‘s decision this weekend to end its freeze on West Bank Jewish settlement construction sent diplomats on three continents into desperate activity on Monday as they tried to keep Middle East peace talks alive. And although the discussions covered many topics, in the end they came down to one stubborn goal: how to end settlement construction.

While Israeli and Palestinian negotiators huddled in Washington, Tony Blair, the international envoy to the process and former British prime minister, shuttled around Jerusalem. And in Paris, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France met with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and extended an invitation to him and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, for a meeting there next month. Both accepted.

Mr. Sarkozy called on Monday for an end to Jewish settlement building, as did the United Nations secretary general and the American and British governments.


The Palestinian leadership has said from the start of the direct talks four weeks ago that if the building moratorium were not extended there was no point in continuing the negotiations. But Mr. Abbas announced on Monday that instead of walking out, he would carry out further consultations at home this week and with Arab leaders next Monday in Cairo.

The consultation plans granted at least another week to finding a formula for the settlement dilemma, officials said. The peace talks were in danger of collapse without a formula, they added.

“We pointed to the Arab League meeting next Monday as a way of giving more time for an Israeli answer,” Nabil Shaath, one of the Palestinian negotiators, said by telephone from Paris. “We are waiting for Netanyahu. If he freezes settlements, this will bring us back to the negotiations.”

Other officials said that Mr. Netanyahu has not specifically ruled out stopping settlement construction as part of a package. He would not extend the 10-month building moratorium he declared last November, his aides said, because he felt it vital for both domestic and foreign concerns to live up to his word that it was a one-time gesture.

But now discussions are under way that are focusing again on curbing Jewish settlements on land that would go to the Palestinians for their future state. However, settlements are being negotiated as part of a larger set of issues — they involve borders, territory and, ultimately, security — so their future is not being discussed in isolation.

The goal this week is to find a way forward on all those substantial issues that embraces a way out of the settlement dilemma, officials said.

George J. Mitchell, the Obama administration’s special envoy to the Middle East, is expected back here in the next couple of days to take part in the talks.

“The key is to put the negotiations back on their feet so that both parties are internally less vulnerable and to take settlements as an issue by itself out of the discussions,” a top diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because all sides had agreed not to talk publicly about the details of the talks.

He added that Mr. Netanyahu has to be able to sell a deal ultimately to his right-leaning cabinet and to the Israeli public, and, therefore, his credibility was a matter of concern to the negotiators and mediators as well as to him.

On Sunday night, as the 10-month construction moratorium ended, Mr. Netanyahu called on Mr. Abbas to keep the negotiations going but made no mention of the settlement moratorium or the start of construction. Earlier in the day, he called on leaders of the settlers to “show restraint and responsibility,” meaning to avoid ostentation and incitement.

Generally, the reaction in West Bank Jewish settlements to the end of the moratorium was relatively muted on Monday. That may be largely because the Sukkot holiday this week has kept construction crews from working all over the country. Small, mostly symbolic, projects in the settlements of Ariel and Kiryat Arba, among others, were begun on Monday to acknowledge renewed settlement building.

American officials made clear over the weekend that they were deeply disappointed in Mr. Netanyahu’s decision not to extend the freeze. Palestinian officials said they found it hard to understand how the Obama administration could express its opposition to the building but not get it stopped.

“We cannot accept the American position that says it is against settlements but doesn’t lead to an end to them,” Mr. Shaath, the negotiator, said. “We need a practical position from the United States against settlements. I am surprised that America is unable to stop them.”

Mr. Shaath added that the central committee of Mr. Abbas’s Fatah party and the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization were scheduled to meet this week in preparation for the Arab League ministerial meeting next Monday.

Arab leaders, especially of Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, have been eager for the Israeli-Palestinian talks to continue. But all have expressed anger at settlement growth, and it remained unclear what they would advise Mr. Abbas if settlement building was not curbed.

Additional reporting by Khaled Abu Aker in Ramallah, West Bank.

Source: NYtimes.com

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