US special Middle East envoy George Mitchell. Photo: AJN file

WASHINGTON — US special Middle East envoy George Mitchell has announced the start of proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mitchell will broker the indirect talks, which over the next few weeks will have him shuttling between the Palestinian territories and Israel.

“We’ve begun to discuss the structure and scope of these talks, and I will return to the region next week to continue our discussions,” Mitchell, who has been in the area since March 6, said in a statement released Monday afternoon (March 8).

“As we’ve said many times, we hope that these will lead to direct negotiations as soon as possible.”

The Palestinians have refused to engage in direct talks until Israel places a freeze on all settlement construction, including eastern Jerusalem. Israel has only partially frozen settlement expansion.

On March 8 Israel announced approval for the construction of 112 new apartments in a West Bank settlement, a move that angered Palestinians who had just agreed to the new round of indirect talks.

Mitchell addressed the concerns in his statement. Read the full story

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Photo: AJN file

RONI SOFER

JREUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hopes to resume peace negotiations with the Palestinians in the coming weeks.

“I have basis to hope, in a realistic way, that in the coming weeks we will resume the peace process with the Palestinians, without preconditions,” Netanyahu told the Herzliya Conference on February 3.

“I have been saying for a long time that the international community has matured into understanding that Israel wants and is ready to resume the peace process.

“And from the moment this recognition has matured among the key elements in the international community, the practical feasibility of this move is also maturing.”

“There is a saying that it takes two to tango,” Netanyahu added. “In the Middle East, it sometimes takes three, at least at the beginning. Then we can continue to a dance for couples.
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Rabbi Michael Melchior. Photo: AJN file/Peter Haskin

AHRON SHAPIRO

PROMINENT dovish Israeli Rabbi Michael Melchior says that religion, which is often seen as a source of tension between Israelis and Palestinians, has the potential to be a unifying tool for coexistence.

Rabbi Melchior, head of the dovish Israeli religious Zionist faction Meimad, has been in Australia for the Parliament of the World’s Religions. He said that the international faith gathering in Melbourne was an opportunity to see, up close, how interfaith dialogue can cultivate understandings between Jews and Muslims.

The Meimad leader asserted that most Israelis are willing to make peace, even if it means “giving up what is ours and what we seriously believe is ours”, inferring territorial compromise.

However, he said, Israelis have lost confidence that a real peace is attainable.
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AHRON SHAPIRO

THE Israel Defence Forces have deepened their probes into possible ncidents of suspected wrongdoing by its soldiers during the Gaza war of earlier this year, according to a report in The Jerusalem Post.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America on November 9. Photo: JTA

WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has called for the immediate resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

“Let us seize the moment to reach an historic agreement; let us begin talks immediately,” Netanyahu said, appealing to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his speech in Washington on November 9 to the Jewish Federations of North America.

Netanyahu repeatedly called on Abbas to drop Palestinian preconditions. The Palestinian leadership wants Israel to institute a total settlement freeze as a precondition for talks.

Netanyahu chided the Palestinians for turning aside what he and the Obama administration have suggested is an “unprecedented” offer to freeze some settlement while allowing for “natural growth” and building in Jerusalem.

“No Israeli government has been so willing to restrain settlement activity,” he said.
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HAVIV RETTIG GUR

THE past decade has been a difficult one for Middle East optimists. From the jaws of victory in 2000, the Palestinians somehow snatched defeat.

In response to massive Israeli withdrawals, to the total absence of Israeli soldiers from Palestinian towns, and to an Israeli offer to share sovereignty over the Temple Mount, the autocratic Palestinian government of Yasser Arafat in October 2000 launched the bloodiest terror campaign endured by any democracy in recent decades.
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YITZHAK BENHORIN

WASHINGTON - The White House urged Israel and the Palestinians on Thursday to do more to open the way to renewed peace negotiations as President Barack Obama received a report on the status of US peacemaking efforts.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with President Obama earlier in the day and presented him with her report on the progress in the efforts to resume negotiations in the Middle East, which according to her was scant.
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WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama called at the United Nations for the launch of comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace negotiations.

Obama, in an address Wednesday to the General Assembly also said Iran must be held accountable for its suspected nuclear weapons program.
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Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak. Photo: AJN file

JERUSALEM — Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak fears that the Palestinians are going to “miss a huge opportunity” to achieve statehood.

“There is a US president who says determinedly, ‘I am going to put my political capital into making sure there is an independent Palestinian state and solve all the core issues in two years’,” Barak was quoted as saying in a New York Times article published on Monday.

“If we bear in mind Israel’s security needs and the demand that a final agreement means an end to the conflict, this is an opportunity that must not be missed.”

Barak was scheduled to meet his US counterpart, Robert Gates, in Washington on Monday.

In addition to focusing on the Palestinians, Barak told the newspaper that Washington should concentrate on maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge and on Iran.

Barak also said that the United States should be more concerned with how to handle the nuclear weapons of North Korea, which will influence Iran.
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TORONTO – The co-director of an international film festival showcasing Tel Aviv said the city “remains contested ground”

In an open letter in response to a protest by dozens of celebrities protesting the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to showcase the city of Tel Aviv, festival co-director Cameron Bailey wrote that spotlighting Tel Aviv was “not a simple choice and that the city remains contested ground. We continue to learn more about the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement”.

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