Kerry Returns To Israel To Try To Save Faltering Peace Talks
Image by getty images
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry headed back to the Middle East on Thursday, a week after his previous visit ended with Palestinian dissatisfaction over U.S. security ideas for an elusive land-for-peace deal with Israel.
Kerry, who has quipped that his frequent trips to the region have become a commute, planned separate meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It will be the top U.S. diplomat’s ninth visit to Israel since becoming secretary of state in February. Israel and the Palestinians resumed U.S.-brokered peace talks in July after a three-year break, aiming to reach a deal in nine months.
Amid little public sign of progress in the negotiations, Kerry said he had presented Israel and the Palestinians last week with “some thoughts” on security arrangements in any future accord, but gave no details.
A Palestinian source said that a U.S. security proposal last week outlined an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley, which is in the occupied West Bank, for 10 years.
Israel has long said it wants to keep a military presence in the Jordan Valley between the West Bank and Jordan, in what would constitute the eastern border of a future Palestinian state.
The Palestinians reject that Israeli stipulation, and on Monday a senior Palestinian official accused Washington of bowing to Israel’s security demands to silence its criticism of world power diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Israeli and U.S. officials have signaled that Washington is trying to achieve a framework agreement on all major issues of the decades-old conflict that would be fulfilled in phases, in a nod to Israeli security concerns.
Netanyahu has voiced worries that without an Israeli troop presence, Islamist militants could use the West Bank as a launching point for rocket attacks on Israel, much as they have in the Gaza Strip, from which Israel pulled out in 2005.
“Israel’s security and the security of its citizens cannot be placed in the hands of foreign forces or in the hands of electronic means alone,” Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Israel Radio.
“Our security must be in our own hands,” he said. “I know it is hard for (the Palestinians) to swallow but they will have to accept … that Israel has security interests it cannot forgo, and if they want peace, they must make significant compromises.”
In Washington on Saturday, U.S. President Barack Obama said the Palestinians had to recognize there would be a transition period “where the Israeli people cannot expect a replica of Gaza in the West Bank”.
“They (the Palestinians) don’t get everything that they want on Day One. And that creates some political problems for President Abbas, as well,” Obama said.
The Palestinians, who seek a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital, have long rejected any interim agreement.
But Western-backed Abbas, who has held sway only in the West Bank since his Hamas Islamist rivals seized the Gaza Strip in 2007, has hinted he would agree to a gradual implementation of a final accord. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said talks on security arrangements would continue during Kerry’s visit but other issues would be discussed as well.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
