Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat says that his government will not accept a “partial” settlement freeze as a conciliatory move to kickstart peace talks, saying only a full freeze would do.
Erekat had been pressed on the question of whether a freeze that only covered construction on the outside of the West Bank barrier would be acceptable, which he noted would be all but meaningless since over 90% of settlement construction occurs inside the barrier.
President Obama urged the Palestinians to drop the call of the settlement freeze at all and simply resume talks unconditionally. This has been seen as impractical since Israel has continued to expand deeper into the West Bank throughout the past decades, and seeks to do so going forward.
With settlements encroaching deeper and deeper into the West Bank, the land for a contiguous Palestinian state is getting smaller and smaller, and negotiators are concerned that restarting talks without a freeze would mean their position would get weaker every day, as new expansions mean less territory is up for grabs.
The Palestinians are warned by Barack Hussein Obama not to go to ICC for illegal Israeli settlement in Stolen-occupied land.., and now this.., is like to kill a man then ask for his id. Hence.., it shows how desperate USA has become, it shows that there is no other way for Barack Hussein Obama and his vulture capitalism-establishment to understand that their politics is domed.., Yankee go home and take your bull dogs with you.
The difference between the reporting of US and foreign media on this topic is interesting. Here is the Guardian's 3/22/13 take on the Obama-Abbas meeting: Palestinians had hoped for a gesture of friendship from Obama on his four-hour visit to Ramallah; instead, the president berated their leader Mahmoud Abbas for insisting on a freeze on new settlements as a precondition to restarting peace talks, calling them merely "an irritant." Abbas, whose trademark scowl seemed particularly intense, looked shocked. "We require the Israeli government to stop settlements to discuss our issues," he shot back. "It's not only our perspective that settlements are illegal. The UN Security Council has issued more than 13 resolutions condemning settlements and calling on Israel to remove them." By contrast, US media reports omit any mention of the unquestioned illegality of the settlements under many UN Security Council resolutions that the US — with veto power — obviously either voted for or abstained from voting on. All that our US stenographers for the White House say is that the settlements are "an irritant" or "not constructive". And so it goes.
Then the Palestinians are a bit late in coming to that conclusion.
A 'partial freeze' ? That is like saying I will beat you with a shorter stick…. for a little while.
How can you "drop the call of the settlement freeze at all and simply resume talks unconditionally" when the other side has broken into your house,stolen food,water and the living room while an occupation soldier has his jackboot pushing down on your neck, your 14 year old son was just arrested at 3am, and illegal settlers have just broken your windows the day before calling you the illegal immigrant on the land your ancestors lived on for thousands of years and they just got here last week?
"With settlements encroaching deeper and deeper into the West Bank, the land for a contiguous Palestinian state is getting smaller and smaller, and negotiators are concerned that restarting talks without a freeze would mean their position would get weaker every day, as new expansions mean less territory is up for grabs."
Nonsense. Israel and the US would like you to believe this but it just ain't so. Israel can me made to give back all the territory it has taken since the original UN division of Palestine.
reservations modeled after what was done to the indians is their paradigm..