Peres holds secret talks with Palestinians in bid to restart negotiations
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz
President Shimon Peres has been holding intensive talks with Ramallah in an effort to resume negotiations and head off a unilateral Palestinian statehood bid at the UN in September.
The meetings are being held in complete coordination with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Haaretz has learned that on Tuesday night, Peres held a long meeting with the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat. The two went over maps of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in an effort to find a formula that would bypass the dispute over establishing the June 4, 1967 border as a basis for negotiations toward a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
One option explored was the exchange of territory, and others was to compensate the Palestinians for settlement blocs annexed into Israel, on the basis of the U.S. proposal that the area of a Palestinian state be equal to the territory of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Both the president’s and prime minister’s bureaus refused to comment on the report.
A senior Palestinian source in Ramallah confirmed that Erekat met a number of times with Peres, including this week.
A hint at the meetings with the Palestinians could be found in statements made by Peres during a special message to the Arabic media on the eve of Ramadan, which is expected to begin early next week.
“I speak with all sides,” Peres said. “I know that there are exchanges in order to prevent [the crisis] in September and that the differences are very minor.”
During a meeting with Arabic-language reporters from Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and neighboring countries, Peres called on both sides to return to the negotiating table.
“Such a political move will allow for a breakthrough and will transform September into a month of hope,” he said. “I have noted the Palestinianpreference for an agreement instead of continuing the conflict in a UN resolution.”
Officials fear that heightened tensions and violence could break out come September, when the Palestinian Authority is expected to appeal to the UN for recognition as a state, a move which may push the two sides further apart.
Peres also told the reporters there is no basis to the claims that Netanyahu is planning to void the Oslo Accords.
While surveys show Netanyahu’s popularity shrinking over the housing protests and doctors’ strike, Peres announced his support for Netanyahu’s domestic aid package.
“In talks with the prime minister, ministers and MKs, my impression is that they realize the seriousness of the situation,” the president said. “I hope that the program the prime minister has presented will ease the standing of
the middle class.”
@ Felix Quigley:
Anyone who has any knowledge of Israel politics knows that it’s a closed system. You don’t rise to the top of the pyramid as an unknown and not part of the existing cliques. The exceptions have always been Military COS or war heroes like Dayan, Sharon, Raful and Rabin. Certainly not an unknown who lived and was educated in America.
Who were the power brokers behind the elevation of BB then and who owns him today?
Felix Quigley Said:
BB then was finance minister and supported Sharon until it was a done deal and irrevocable, then he came out against and quit the government to gains political separation anticipating the next election cycle. His move was transparent and nobody bought it but the blind the self-interested and the pathologically obtuse. BB has always been a sheep with a wolfs rhetoric.
Naw ambition is only an effect. Root of cause is the ideology. trace the ideology back to Ben Gurion and knifing of the Revisionists
Back further too.
Yamit is quoting Chamish and that interests me greatly. Livni was rejected by the Israelis en masse, but for US Nazis that is still OK, because only a Netanyahu can deliver the Israel Revolution and betray it.
that is the role of Netanyahu.
he wastes time and time is a revolutionary factor.
look at the gaza betrayal. the Jewish Youth ALONE fought. Big numbers supported withdrawal. Sharon created an antisemitic police unit.
NETANYAHU WAITED AND WAITED AND WAITED
Till it was too late
One jewish woman in Gaza complained that her lawn was being trampled down. Inside weeks hamas were occupying her lawn!!!
Get it Mr Howard. Time here is the factor and Bibi is a waster of time.
he delivers the Israelis into the jaws of the American Nazis.
you mr howard as with katz are a good man but you do not understand the tempo of revolution and counter revolution.
I apologize it is Dr. David Sternlight. every time I put his name in the spell check on my computer changes it to starlight.
@yamit82 Your remarks concerning Prime Minister Netanyahu and Sec. George Shultz perplex me. As an insider I watched many arm wrestles. However I never detected any conspiracy to utilize Netanyahu as American tool. I have noted that Livini’s actions with state and with the national Security Council have undermined the Israeli administration… I chalk that up to her blind ambition.
I have asked Dr. David starlight (offline)to review your comment and furnish me with his appraisal. As you should know he is extremely well-connected and well thought of throughout the entire military/intelligence/analysis community. I always respect his conclusions as being based on solid facts and an excellent reasoning. There are issues on which we disagree and hopefully our interaction (his and mine) would lead to better decisions.
I look forward to any other posters comments and information on your observation.
It is a foregone conclussion that a substantial number of the “leadership”, regardless of who is elected, are in cahoots. Some pose and contorts a bit to appear to be with ‘us’. But not much more.
No one is dissolving the “Jewish Sektion” of the GSS, or disbanding the paramilitary or military special units in place since the 90’s exclusively to attack Jews.
There are a vast number of Shai Nitzans and Beinishes polluting the so called “justice system”.
The same “clikah” blocked the passage of the two Parlamentary Commissions intended to search for the sources of finances of inimical NPO’s and others.
Peres in that context is one of the linchpins. He is the ultimate saboteur, underhanded creep. Never actually elected directly but always there.
Only a deep process originated by people willing to take down that system can do the job.
@IlaniYal – I stand corrected as to the identity of the killer but I stand by the rest of my statement that Israel is shifting towards the better.
@ LT COL HOWARD:
LT COL HOWARD Said:
This is a truism and not just for the Arabs and I didn’t need thirty years to figure it out either. Just kidding!
BB knows the score but he is not his own man. He is answerable to others plus he is a political coward probably a traitor and a crook as well.
How do you think a political nobody just out of MIT working for wall st. brokerage firm making triple figures, quits his job returns to Israel gets a job at RIM a furniture chain for 15k a year. Organizes a conference on terror and all the top neocons attend including Bush, Schultz, Pearl, you name him he was there. 6 months later BB lands number 2 slot in the Israeli embassy in Washington, Arens the then ambassador was later asked why he had picked BB? He replied Schultz told him to. Every time he went to the States BB’s first call was to Kissinger. BB was also listed for a time as a member of the CFR. Keep in mid BB was not known in Israel had no political standing and no political constituency in back of him. I believe him to be an American stooge run by Kissinger and those who came after if any.
emmess Said:
The killer was a Haredi Rabbi, not an arab
Police arrested a suspect, Rabbi Asher Dahan, they said was delivered to officers by a crowd. The suspect was taken for questioning.
Judges in the Beersheba Magistrates’ Court ruled Friday morning to extend the arrest of Rabbi Dahan.
Dahan’s arrest was extended and he will remain in custody until a further hearing on August 10.
Judge Amit Cohen also ordered that Dahan undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
The motive for the homicide has not been established at this stage.
The funeral procession was expected to set out from the Porat Yosef yeshiva in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood around noon on Friday.
Several hundred police officers were deployed along the route of the funeral procession to direct traffic and maintain order.
There is a revolution coming. The Arabs may have just knifed one rabbi too many with the murder of the grandson of the Baba Sali. Zionism may now become a political matter with the Mizrachi Jews who had previously seen Israel as merely a safe haven and empathized with the PA. Judaism in all its forms seems to be taken more seriously by the younger generation that was not tainted by the Sabra Marxism of the “pioneers” and even manifests itself in the form of decent manners – a repudiation by the kids of the uncouth behaviour of their elders. Israel is changing for the better and the sooner Peres and his leftist slobs are gone, the sooner Israel will start to take the actions needed for her survival.
@ Felix ??? Howard that is mumbo jumbo. You can do nothing till you get a revolutionary leadership there, first step kick out Bibi!??????
PLEASE EXPLAIN/ELABORATE.
Katz…you obfuscate.
Only Emness replied to previous, where i challenged you all, Bibi is in league with US imperialism, the US nazi fascists who rule America
That is the issue Katz
Not his alliance with Peres which is a side issue
Howard that is mumbo jumbo. You can do nothing till you get a revolutionary leadership there, first step kick out Bibi!
Having been enmeshed in the Islamic world for more than 30 years I have learned to heed the advice of my Arab mentors. They quoted me a Chinese proverb that he who can be made to take one step backwards to be made to take 1000. Israel should develop the scenario that this unilateral action by the Palestinian Authority will bring chaos to the Palestinians. Israel should drop all the catastrophic consequences that will occur to the Palestinians. If they are rewarded by Israel expressing panic and making offers to head them off this will only encourage them to attempt further blackmail. Like the prisoner exchanges, each one escalates as the Palestinians taste success and reuse these tactics with a higher and higher price.
I don’t believe that Peres speaks for the majority of the Israelis or of Zionist Jews in the dispora. Time is long past that Peres is turned out to pasture or make him a citizen of Jordan. This man is an idiot of the highest rank.