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WAR REPORT
Abbas prefers unilateral moves to peace talks: Israel
by Staff Writers
Jerusalem (AFP) June 05, 2013


Palestinians mark Six-Day War demanding 1967 borders
Jerusalem (AFP) June 05, 2013 - Palestinian officials marked 46 years since the start of the 1967 war with Israel on Wednesday by insisting any peace talks must be based on the lines that existed before the Jewish state's occupation.

Chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erakat visited three villages in the West Bank whose populations fled the Israeli invasion during the Six-Day War against the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

Israeli forces occupied Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem during the conflict, with Palestinians mourning it as the "Naksa" or setback.

"The (same) fate of the 5,000 Palestinians who were evicted from these villages" in June 1967 still befalls Palestinians in the West Bank today, he told reporters on a stop in the village of Yalu.

The demolition of Yalu, Imwas and Beit Nuba back then was now being repeated "in Jericho, Nablus and everywhere else" in the West Bank, he lamented, citing the destruction of houses by the Israeli army, which expels hundreds of Palestinian families from their homes in areas under its control each year.

"Why did the Israelis evict those people in 1967? Simply because they wanted to declare the borders," Erakat said.

He reiterated Palestinian demands for a halt to Israeli settlement building in Palestinian territories and a return to the pre-war lines as a basis for any peace talks.

Israel, for its part, calls for talks "without preconditions" and refuses publicly to freeze settlement building.

Peace negotiations stalled in September 2010 over the settlements issue.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Executive Committee of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's PLO, slammed Israel's continued settlement building in a statement marking the war's anniversary.

"Forty-six years later, the Israeli occupation of 22 percent of historical Palestine still constitutes a humanitarian and political disaster that dominates and controls the lives of the Palestinian people in Palestine and in exile," she said.

"Our struggle will continue until we... witness the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital," Ashrawi said, pointing out that Israel's settlement building is illegal under international law.

Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, in its own report marking the anniversary, slammed Israel's "de facto annexation of Area C (in the West Bank) and creation of circumstances that will help perpetuate this situation and influence the final status of the area".

Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank, is under full Israeli control.

"In theory, Israel retains complete authority only in Area C," B'Tselem said. "In practice, Israel's control of Area C adversely affects all Palestinian West Bank residents," more than 2.5 million people.

The report added that "contrary to international law," Israel was actively encouraging its citizens to settle in the West Bank.

But Israel's deputy foreign minister Zeev Elkin on Wednesday reiterated Israel's refusal to return to the pre-June 1967 lines.

"The people of Israel are not ready to commit suicide and make the same mistake they made when they pulled out of the Gaza Strip (in 2005)," he said, referring to the subsequent takeover of the territory by Islamist movement Hamas and the rockets which have since been fired at southern Israel.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who will visit the region next week for a fifth time since February, has been trying to draw the parties back into direct negotiations, but on Monday warned Israel could be facing its last chance to secure a peace deal.

Israel on Wednesday accused Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas of pursuing "unilateral" moves to seek statehood in hopes of avoiding concessions that would be demanded in negotiations with the Jewish state.

"He thinks that the unilateral path will get him further and that way he won't have to pay a political price," Israel's deputy foreign minister, Zeev Elkin, said on public radio.

The Palestinians in November successfully applied for upgraded UN status as a non-member state in what was sharply denounced by Israel and Washington as a "unilateral" move, with both insisting a Palestinian state can only arise out negotiations.

Elkin spoke as Israel and the Palestinians separately marked 46 years since the start of the Six-Day War when Israeli forces occupied Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, with the Palestinians mourning it as the "naksa" or setback.

His comments also came just days before US Secretary of State John Kerry returns to the region for his fifth visit in just over four months in a bid to coax the parties into resuming direct talks which collapsed in September 2010.

They were echoed later Wednesday when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in a parliamentary debate about changes in an Arab League peace initiative that would allow Israel and the Palestinians to trade territory in a final peace deal.

"We listen to any initiative; the Arab initiative has been mentioned" in the debate, Netanyahu told MPs. "We are prepared to discuss initiatives which are suggestions and not dictates."

"Israel is not the party evading negotiations, which places obstacles to entering negotiations," he said.

"I call on Abu Mazen to withdraw now his preconditions and come and talk," Netanyahu said, using the name under which Abbas is familiarly known in Arabic.

"Give peace a chance," he said, switching from Hebrew to English.

Elkin, a hawkish member of Netanyahu's rightwing Likud party, also reaffirmed Israel's refusal to return to the lines which existed before the 1967 war.

"The people of Israel are not ready to commit suicide and make the same mistake they made when they pulled out of the Gaza Strip (in 2005)," he said, referring to the subsequent takeover of the territory by Islamist movement Hamas and the rockets which have since been aimed at southern Israel.

A similar stance was expressed on Tuesday by Yoram Cohen, head of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, in a meeting with MPs at the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and defence.

According to Maariv newspaper, Cohen said Abbas did not think he could gain anything from entering talks because the starting point of the current Israeli government was nowhere near what he had been discussing with former premier Ehud Olmert.

"Abu Mazen (Abbas) always carries with him the promises of the former (leaders), and is unable to adjust to the reality of the current ones," an MP at the meeting quoted him as saying.

Olmert, who was in power between 2006 and 2009, reportedly offered Abbas around 93 percent of the Palestinian territories during talks in 2008, and proposed a mutual land swap for the remaining 6.3 percent that would permit Israel to keep the major settlement blocs.

The proposal was more or less along the 1967 lines, but Abbas turned it down, telling the Washington Post in 2009 that the offer was insufficient: "The gaps were wide," he said.

Kerry has been trying to draw the parties back into direct negotiations, but on Monday warned that Israel could be facing its last chance to secure a peace deal.

Until now, the Palestinian leadership has said it will only return to negotiations if Israel stops building on land it wants for a future state and if the Jewish state agrees to negotiate on the basis of the pre-1967 lines.

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