The US wants a four-month Israeli building freeze in occupied east Jerusalem, one of a series of demands from Washington aimed at reviving dormant peace talks, media reports said yesterday.
In return for a Jerusalem freeze — something Israel has refused to contemplate in the past — the US would pressure Palestinians to hold direct talks with Israel, the Haaretz daily reported.
The paper, quoting unnamed Israeli officials, said the four-month freeze would coincide with the period the Arab League had backed for talks between the Palestinians and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned last week from a tense visit to Washington that appeared to deepen a bitter row with the administration of US President Barack Obama over the building of Jewish settlements, including in annexed Arab east Jerusalem.
PHOTO: EPA
He was reportedly given a set of demands for wide-ranging measures including the extension of a partial settlement halt and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to promote a restart of the stalled peace process with the Palestinians.
Neither Israel nor the US has said what the demands are. However, Netanyahu has been meeting with his security cabinet to craft a response to the US demands.
Israel’s Channel Two news, which also reported the demand for a Jerusalem freeze, said no answer was expected from Israel until after the Passover holiday ends next week.
Officials in Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the reports.
The spat with Washington erupted after Netanyahu’s government announced it would build 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers in east Jerusalem as US Vice President Joe Biden was in the region last month hoping to promote peace talks.
The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state and refuse to resume direct negotiations with Israel without a complete freeze of settlement construction in the occupied territories.
The two sides had agreed earlier this month to hold US-brokered indirect talks but the announcement of the plans to build 1,600 settler homes in east Jerusalem brought the initiative to an abrupt halt.
Israel has already agreed to a 10-month freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank, excluding Jerusalem, which Israel considers its capital.
And since returning from Washington, Netanyahu has said Israel would not stop building in all of Jerusalem.
“The prime minister’s position is that there is no change in Israel’s policy on Jerusalem that has been pursued by all governments of Israel for the last 42 years,” his office said on Friday.
Direct talks have been frozen since Israel launched a devastating 22-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 in a bid to halt rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory ruled by Hamas.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS