AL ZUBEIDAT: Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said yesterday that peace talks could come to an abrupt end if Israel continues building settlements on occupied land and killing Palestinians.
“There is a kind of pattern in these negotiations since they began,” Erakat said during a visit with diplomats and journalists to the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank.
“Every time there’s a (negotiating) session, there is an announcement on tenders” for new settler homes, he said.
And “seven Palestinians have been killed so far” in operations by the Israeli army since US-brokered bilateral talks resumed in August.
Days before the first meeting on August 14, Israel announced the approval of more than 2,000 new Jewish settler homes for construction in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem.
In the latest deadly clash between Palestinians and the Israeli army, soldiers shot a 21-year-old suspected Palestinian militant during an arrest attempt at his home in Jenin on September 9. He died in hospital.
“Somebody needs to tell the Israelis: ‘Give this peace process a chance, because if your pattern is to prevent Palestinians from coming to the negotiating table, you’re about to succeed.’”
Erakat declined to elaborate on the progress of negotiations, which are under a media blackout imposed by the talks’ middleman, US Secretary of State John Kerry.
In Ramallah, the Palestinian government was sworn in yesterday, weeks after caretaker prime minister Rami Hamdallah agreed to take up the post permanently.
The cabinet was unchanged from its line-up in June — when it was first appointed — but had to take the oath anew after a crisis later that month over what officials described as a “power struggle.”
Hamdallah, who took over from predecessor Salam Fayyad and was sworn in as premier on June 6, resigned two weeks later because of in-fighting between him and his two deputies.
AFP
