PLO says no talks until Israel halts settlements

The Palestinian leadership said on Saturday negotiations with Israel would not resume until it halted settlement building.

US-backed peace talks, launched a month ago in Washington, were plunged into crisis this week by the end of a 10-month Israeli moratorium on new settlement building in the West Bank. Israel has said it will not extend the freeze.

“The leadership confirms that the resumption of talks requires tangible steps, the first of them a freeze on settlements,” senior Palestine Liberation Official (PLO) Yasser Abed Rabbo said after a meeting in Ramallah.

“The Palestinian leadership holds Israel responsible for obstructing the negotiations,” he said, reading from a statement issued after the meeting.

Palestinians say the growth of the settlements, on land Israel has occupied since 1967, will render impossible the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — the stated goal of the peace talks.
Some 500,000 Jews have settled on territory where the Palestinians aim to establish their state with East Jerusalem as its capital. To Israel, the West Bank is “Judea and Samaria” — where the Jews trace their biblical past.
Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition government is dominated by pro-settlement parties including his own Likud, has said he will not extend the construction moratorium, which has been in place for 10 months and expired on Monday.
An official quoted Netanyahu on Friday as saying it had not been easy to freeze construction for the past 10 months and that he had lived up to his commitments to the Palestinians, the United States and the international community.
“Now I expect the Palestinians to show some flexibility,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying. “Everyone knows that measured and restrained building in Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank) in the coming year will have no influence on the peace map.”
US President Barack Obama has invested major political capital in a bid for a Middle East settlement within a year.
US envoy George Mitchell shuttled between Mahmoud Abbas and Netanyahu for two days this week. The sides agreed to keep talking via Mitchell, the way they had communicated before the launch of the direct talks.
“So far, efforts have reached a dead end,” Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for Abbas, said on his way out of the PLO meeting. Abbas had informed Mitchell of the Palestinian position during their meeting on Friday, he said.
“There will be no negotiations in the shadow of continued settlement,” Abu Rdainah said. “All the while Israel is not convinced that the political process be based on international law and justice, matters will remain in a state of paralysis for a long time.”