Christianity Oasis Forum

[lizzie]

By MATTHEW LEE and BARRY SCHWEID,
Associated Press Writers


WASHINGTON The Obama administration said Thursday it is near to securing an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians to resume direct peace talks. Some U.S. officials said an announcement could be imminent.

The State Department said an agreement was "very, very close" but that details were still being worked out. An announcement could come as early as Friday or Saturday, said administration officials familiar with the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the delicacy of the ongoing diplomacy.

"We think we are very, very close to a decision by the parties to enter into direct negotiations," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters. "We think we're well positioned to get there."

To that end, he said, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had called Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad late Wednesday and spoken Thursday with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the special representative of the "Quartet" of Mideast peacemakers  the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia.

Officials said tentative plans call for the Quartet and the U.S. to release separate statements saying the stalled talks will resume early next month in either the U.S. or Egypt. The U.S. statement, expected to be issued in Clinton's name, and the Quartet statement would serve as invitations for the talks, they said.

The Israelis and Palestinians would then accept, the officials said.

Crowley declined comment on the specific arrangements but suggested multiple statements were in the works.

"As part of the Quartet we are prepared to demonstrate our support for the parties as they move towards this decision," he said. "But we, the United States, have always played a special role within this effort, and we will be prepared to assist the parties going forward in moving towards a successful negotiation. So we can do both."

The Palestinians had been balking at direct talks until the Quartet reaffirmed a March statement calling for a peace deal based on the pre-1967 Mideast war borders, and for talks to be completed within two years.

But Israel rejected that, saying it amounted to placing conditions on the negotiations. Israel had been demanding a separate invitation from the U.S.

Details of the timing and location of talks remained unclear on Thursday. The U.S. officials said they were still shooting for around Sept. 1 in either Washington, Cairo or the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheik.

Timing is critical because of religious holidays, the upcoming annual session of the U.N. General Assembly in the third week of September and the Sept. 26 expiration of a temporary 10-month freeze on Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.

Israeli and Palestinian officials refused to comment. They said they would react after an official announcement is made, and added that they did not have advance information about the content.

The Obama administration has been pushing for a speedy resumption of face-to-face negotiations that broke down in December 2008. U.S. special Mideast envoy George Mitchell has been shuttling between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for months in a bid to get them to agree.

Abbas is wary of entering open-ended talks with Netanyahu, who has retreated from some concessions offered by his predecessors. Abbas wants Israel to accept the principle of Palestinian statehood in the lands Israel occupied in the 1967 war with minor modifications, and wants all Jewish settlement activity halted during the talks.

[mlg]

Got to work this morning, and everyone was all abuzz that this treaty will be signed in the next day or so...and how this will lead up to the endtimes...

God's in control.

[mlg]

Alright, went to see what I could find...and this is what we have so far.

Hamas Looms as Spoiler in Middle East Peace Talks

Published September 02, 2010
FoxNews
Palestinian supporters of Hamas raise their right index fingers in the air as a sign of loyalty to the group during a Gaza Strip rally to celebrate a militant attack in the southern West Bank Aug. 31. (AP Photo)
Middle East peace talks got under way Thursday for the first time in nearly two years with a violent reminder sent by the Palestinian terror group Hamas that it will try to torpedo any agreement struck in Washington between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist despite that acknowledgment by the Palestinian Authority more than a decade ago.

As a result, the PA, led by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party, run the West Bank while Hamas has its thumb on Gaza. Joining the two territories into one state is one of the Palestinians' objectives of peace talks.

Ignoring Hamas, however, is tricky business. The group flexed its muscle with back-to-back attacks this week on Israelis in the West Bank. Those kinds of attacks position it to spoil any meeting of the minds.

Analysts say that however vile Hamas, the U.S.-led talks can't bear fruit until the organization is either placated or ostracized by its own people.

Freddie MacDavid Makovsky, a fellow with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy who recently traveled to Ramallah in the West Bank to meet with Abbas, sided with the latter strategy.

"The best way to deal with Hamas is to demonstrate success in the West Bank and let the people decide," Makovsky said. "People won't believe a Middle East peace speech, but they will believe a deal."

The two other countries at the table in the re-launched peace talks are Egypt, represented by President Hosni Mubarak, and Jordan, represented by King Abdullah II.

Mubarak, in a New York Times column published before the talks commenced, said that a two-state solution hinges on concessions regarding the Gaza Strip, including a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, an end to the blockade and "reconciliation between Hamas and its rival Fatah."

"The Palestinians cannot make peace with a house divided. If Gaza is excluded from the framework of peace, it will remain a source of conflict, undermining any final settlement," Mubarak wrote.

A Brookings Institution analysis said that while Hamas is "well-placed to play the spoiler role," the Palestinian Authority is trying to give them less "incentive" by seeking Gaza-centric concessions like the release of prisoners, improved access and economic aid.

That would also improve chances of marginalizing Hamas further, since its agenda is on shaky footing at home. A Palestinian Center for Public Opinion poll found more Palestinians would prefer a Fatah-led government than a Hamas-led government.

"There is a chance for peace," said Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, adding that a final agreement would need to allow both sides to claim part of Jerusalem as their own. "The main issue really is political will."

An August study from the Arab World for Research and Development found 95 percent of Palestinians would consider a peace accord as "the end of the conflict."

Until then, rhetoric on the far ends of both sides not surprisingly escalated in the run-up to the talks, which ended Thursday with a pledge to meet again in two weeks.

Religious conservatives in Israel have questioned the talks and settlers in the West Bank started building again Wednesday in violation of a government freeze on construction.

On Tuesday, four Israelis were killed in a fatal shooting in the West Bank near Hebron. Hamas took responsibility for that before then claiming responsibility for the shooting of two more Israelis in a roadside attack Wednesday in the West Bank. One of the Israelis was seriously wounded in the attack, according to Haaretz.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the top Hamas official in Gaza, Mahmoud Zahar, also delivered a speech Wednesday in which he assailed the peace talks.

"Today marks the start of direct negotiations between someone who has no right to represent the Palestinian people and the brutal occupier," he said.

Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have both tried to tamp down the incitement. Referencing the Hamas attacks, Netanyahu said security is essential for any lasting peace agreement and condemned those trying to disrupt the process.

"They seek to kill our people, kill our state, kill our peace," he said.