U.S. President Barack Obama’s hopes for a quick peace pact between the Palestinian Authority and Israel are rapidly growing dimmer as a PA spokesman Monday termed as “illegal” any future American approval of Israeli building in several Jerusalem neighborhoods.
Buoyed by President Obama’s insistence that Israel stop all construction in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, senior spokesman for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudenia, explicitly rejected Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s offer for the immediate resumption of negotiations.
“Settlement activities should be halted completely to lay the groundwork for resuming serious negotiations, which could lead to a real outcome,” he said. His comments were reported by the Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency, which is closely tied with the PA.
He said that the PA rejects allowing construction for “natural growth” in Jerusalem as well as in Judea and Samaria. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said he agrees not to build more communities in Judea and Samaria but that building will continue for natural growth. Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria have consistently grown at a much higher rate than the national average in the past several years, and a housing shortage exists in many communities because of American pressures to stop building.
Rudenia’s demand essentially negates any negotiations on the actual form of a future PA state and leaves the only issue to be one of timing. The Obama administration has not clearly stated whether its demand includes neighborhoods in Jerusalem that were restored to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, but Rudenia left no doubt where the PA stands.
No leading Israeli political leader has expressed willingness to halt construction in Jerusalem neighborhoods, such as French Hill, Ramot, Talpiot and Gilo, that were built after the war. A PA agreement to allow construction there in return for a halt to building in smaller Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem is equally unlikely because it would render a de facto recognition of so-called "occupied territory."
Abbas is scheduled to visit the White House on Thursday and has staked out a no-compromise position. He has refused to accept an Israeli demand that he recognize Israel as a “Jewish State,” a term that would preclude the possibility of flooding the country with foreign Arabs who claim to be descendants of former Israeli Arabs who fled the country during the 1948 War of Independence. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the umbrella group that includes the PA, like Hamas, does not recognize the State of Israel.
Abbas’s advisor Salah al-Ta'amari, said in a statement to the media that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s stand “is a big fallacy [and] is a confirmation that he and his government are not interested in peace."