Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer of a freeze on settlement building in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel’s Jewish identity was widely seen yesterday as a ploy to complicate US-backed peace efforts.
Netanyahu on Monday spelled out recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as his price for a renewal of a ban on construction in the occupied West Bank, seen as key to rescuing direct talks relaunched last month.
The offer was rejected out of hand by the Palestinians, who said it had “nothing to do with the peace process,” and was also widely slammed by Israeli politicians and commentators as a political ploy to sabotage the talks.
Netanyahu’s proposal was little more than a “major diversionary ploy” cooked up in order to ease the crisis over the expiry of the freeze, the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper said in a scathing editorial.
Top-selling daily Yediot Aharonot said it was “implicit” from Netanyahu’s speech that he was “going to do everything to torpedo the negotiations with the Palestinians at their current stage.”
“Netanyahu is searching for any possible trick to push the Palestinians into the position of being rejectionists,” Shimon Shiffer wrote in an analysis headlined: “The Derailer.”
A renewal of the ban on Jewish settlement building on occupied Palestinian land, which expired on Sept. 26, is largely seen as the key to reviving the moribund peace talks, which began three weeks earlier.
Despite huge diplomatic pressure to reimpose the freeze, especially from Washington, Netanyahu has refused to do so, while Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas has said he will hold no further talks until the building stops.
“If the Palestinian leadership will unequivocally say to its people that it recognizes Israel as the national state of the Jewish people, I will be ready to convene my Cabinet and ask for another moratorium on building,” Netanyahu said on Monday.
The Palestinians formally recognized Israel on the eve of the 1993 Oslo Accords, but they have rejected demands to recognize its Jewish character because it would effectively renounce the right of return for refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
“When he demands that Abbas recognize Israel as a state of the Jewish people, he is offering assisted political suicide to the Palestinian leader,” Haaretz commentator Akiva Eldar wrote.
For one senior member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, Netanyahu’s maneuver had practically ruled out any renewal of a building freeze in the West Bank.
“His proposal pushes off a building freeze and talks with the Palestinians,” the official told the Yediot.
“Negotiations with the Americans are at an impasse, so Netanyahu came up with a proposal to show that he is willing to continue the talks, but it is clear that the Palestinians will not agree. Therefore, there is virtually no chance that the construction freeze will be reinstated,” the Likud official said.
Meanwhile, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said members of the Cabinet’s decisionmaking circle doubt a peace deal with the Palestinians can be reached in the near future.
Yaalon’s remarks appear contrary to Netanyahu’s stated commitment on trying to reach an agreement within a year. Yaalon spoke to Army Radio yesterday.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese