Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested in an interview published yesterday that he would not seek to lure the Palestinians back to peace talks by renewing a freeze on settlement building.
“We already gave at the office,” Netanyahu told the Jerusalem Post, referring to a 10-month partial settlement freeze that expired in late September last year.
Peace talks with the Palestinians began nine months into the freeze, but ground to a halt shortly after the moratorium expired.
Netanyahu’s comments came after the international peacemaking Middle East Quartet called on both sides on Friday to return to peace talks within a month, with the goal of securing a deal before the end of next year.
However, the Palestinians say they will not hold talks while Israel builds on land they want for a future state, a position repeated by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday as he returned to the West Bank after submitting a bid for full UN membership in New York.
Netanyahu told the Post the settlement issue was a “pretext.”
“It is a pretext they use again and again, but I think a lot of people see it as a ruse to avoid direct negotiations,” he said.
And the Israeli leader said he had no intention of interfering with plans for the construction of 700 new homes in the East Jerusalem settlement neighborhood of Gilo.
“I don’t think there is anything new,” he said of the planned building.
“We plan in Jerusalem. We build in Jerusalem. Period. The same way Israeli governments have been doing for years — since the end of the 1967 war,” he added. “We build in Jewish neighborhoods, the Arabs build in Arab neighborhoods — that is the way the life of this city goes on and develops for its Jewish and non-Jewish residents alike.”
Netanyahu told the Jerusalem Post the crux of the failure of talks lay in the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
“Of course it matters — this is what this conflict is all about. It is not about the settlements; it is about the Jewish state. And it must be said over and over again,” he said.
The prospect of a new settlement freeze is also anathema to much of Netanyahu’s right-wing governing coalition, with hawkish Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman vocally opposed.
Netanyahu was due to meet yesterday with the Group of Eight, a grouping of his Cabinet ministers, to discuss the Quartet’s peace talks proposal, Israeli radio reported.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the