* Palestinians want “to put Netanyahu on the spot” over
impasse
* Netanyahu to voice again his terms for peace agreement
By Jeffrey Heller
JERUSALEM, April 4 (Reuters) – The Israeli and Palestinian
prime ministers will meet later this month, officials said on
Wednesday, but the rare talks may only sharpen differences that
have brought peace negotiations to a standstill.
The Palestinians said they will present Benjamin Netanyahu
with a letter spelling out Israel’s failure to implement a 2003
“road map” that includes a halt to settlement activity as a step
towards achieving a final peace agreement.
“The real test in front of Netanyahu is to stop the
settlements, after which he will find that we are ready for
negotiations,” Mohammed Shtayyeh, a member of the Palestinian
negotiating team, told Reuters.
“These aren’t conditions, but what we want him to say is
that he’s ready to end the occupation,” he said.
An Israeli government official said Netanyahu would
reiterate, at the meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam
Fayyad, his call for peace talks to get under way without any
terms for their resumption.
U.S.-hosted peace negotiations froze in late 2010 after
Netanyahu rejected Palestinian demands that he extend the
10-month partial construction freeze he had imposed at
Washington’s behest to coax them into talks.
The official said Netanyahu would also repeat his demand
that Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state in any
peace agreement — something they oppose.
Fayyad will become the highest-level Palestinian official to
have met Netanyahu since the negotiations broke off.
But the upcoming talks, which the officials on both sides
said would be held after Jewish holiday of Passover that ends on
April 14, will not be attended by the highest-ranking
Palestinian leader in the West Bank, President Mahmoud Abbas.
Nabil Shaath, a senior official in Abbas’s Fatah movement,
said the Palestinian letter to Netanyahu “is an assessment of
where we are” in the peace process.
Israel, he said, has pushed ahead with settlement building
and rejected negotiations for a Palestinian state based on the
lines that existed before Israeli forces captured the West Bank
in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, “have done all our
duties of keeping security and better governance”, Shaath said
in English.
“This situation cannot lead us to a peace process,” he said.
“The consequence of this letter is to put Mr. Netanyahu on the
spot. He has now to answer”.
“INDEFENSIBLE”
Netanyahu has called the pre-1967 borders indefensible and
said the future of settlements, which Palestinians fear could
deny them a viable state, should be decided in negotiations.
“I want to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians
because I do not want a bi-national state,” Netanyahu said at a
news conference on Tuesday marking the third anniversary of his
right-wing government.
“Ensuring the existence of a Jewish state is not just a
matter of separation, it is also a matter of security, defence
and keeping our vital, national interests,” he said.
“This requires negotiations, but there is no way to conclude
negotiations if you don’t start negotiations. Until this moment
the Palestinians, not us, have chosen not to negotiate and I
hope they change their minds in the coming months.”
Some 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East
Jerusalem, also captured in 1967 and home to 2.5 million
Palestinians.
Most world powers deem the Jewish settlements illegal.
Israel, which cites historical and biblical links to those
areas, disputes this and has said it will keep major settlement
blocs under any eventual peace accord.
(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta and Noah Browning in
Ramallah and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
