JPOST.COM STAFF
Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz on Sunday said Israel was not planning to make use of US loan guarantees in the near future and has managed to raise funds without guarantees.
Steinitz was responding to remarks by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Thursday, who suggested that Washington could withdraw guarantees given to Israel in the event that peace talks with the Palestinians remained at an impasse.
The finance minister added that several months ago, the US and Israel agreed to extend the loan guarantees by another two years, until the end of 2011. Washington did not set any conditions for extending the guarantees, he said.
On Saturday night, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued a statement in response to Mitchell's remarks, asserting that Israel has taken significant steps to propel the peace process forward while the Palestinian Authority refuses to renew peace talks.
"It is the Palestinian Authority that needs to change its ways - certainly not the Israeli government," the PMO statement read.
In the Thursday interview, when asked by Charlie Rose on PBS: "You sit there and you say to Israel, look, if you don't do this, what?", Mitchell replied: "Under American law, the United States can withhold support on loan guarantees to Israel... There are others [options], and you have to keep open whatever options. But our view is that we think the way to approach this is to try to persuade the parties what is in their self-interest."
Mitchell said he believed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians could be concluded within two years - provided that they resumed in the near future.
"We think that the negotiation should last no more than two years, once begun we think it can be done within that period of time. We hope the parties agree. Personally I think it can be done in a shorter period of time," Mitchell said. He added that the US was working to persuade both Israel and the Palestinians to agree to conditions which were in their best interests.
The envoy said he intends to return to the region in the coming days, and hopes for quick development on the political, security and economic fronts.
On Thursday, Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren told The Jerusalem Post that "In the past, attempts to impose time frameworks have not proved either realizable or helpful."
Mitchell, however, expressed hope that a Palestinian state would be able to properly function from the moment it is established.
He added that parallel to the Palestinian channel, Israel must advance negotiations with Syria.
In related news, while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh on Friday urged the Israelis and Palestinians to begin talks which would resolve the border issue, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat was not optimistic about this latest take on the peace process.
"You cannot have discussions on borders while the territory you want to set up your state on is being eaten up by the settlements," Erekat said.
"We are awaiting the arrival of [US Mideast envoy] Sen. Mitchell, and we hope the US administration will go on the path of the end game. What we need are decisions now on the end game, on the borders," he said.
Hilary Leila Krieger and AP contributed to this report
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Abbas is quoted as saying that he is ready to resume negotiations without preconditions, as long as all Israeli construction is frozen. He also wants the framework to be the pre-1967 birders. Is he making a statement or a demand? Aggie
Gov't opposes 'borders first' approach
Jan. 5, 2010
Herb Keinon and Khaled Abu Toameh
Israel's top decision-makers are against discussing the border issue first in future negotiations with the Palestinians, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Separating final borders from other core issues would allow negotiators to avoid the thorny settlement construction dispute.
In recent days, it has been widely reported that the issue of permanent borders would be the first one tackled in future Israeli-Palestinian talks - the idea being that once they are decided on, the contentious issues regarding settlement building would dissolve, and Israel would clearly be able to build in the settlements that would fall inside the negotiated border.
There have been reports of a US interest in solving the border issue within the next nine months, before the end of the construction moratorium in the settlements, so it would be clear afterward where Israel could and could not build.
But the problem with that approach, according to a senior official in Jerusalem, is that it would mean Israel relinquishing land and settlements without getting anything in return, and then having to begin discussing the more difficult issues of Jerusalem, refugees and the demilitarization of a future Palestinian state.
"In this case you give up territorial assets, and what have you done?" asked the official. "You haven't ended the conflict, and haven't dealt with refugees or Jerusalem. This idea is a nonstarter for all the ministers, from Left or Right."
The official said that from Jerusalem's point of view, the idea that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed must be the guiding principle in future talks, just as it has been in previous rounds.
The official's comments came as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday that he did not want to resume peace talks with Israel on an "unclear basis," and reiterated his demand for a complete cessation of settlement construction.
Abbas, who was speaking to reporters after meeting in Sharm e-Sheikh with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said he reached understandings with Cairo on the required terms for resuming the peace talks.
He said the two sides agreed that Jerusalem must be included in the talks and that Israel should freeze all settlement construction.
"In principle, we have no objections to returning to the negotiating table or holding any kind of meetings," Abbas said. "Nor are we setting preconditions."
Asked if he would be willing to hold a tripartite meeting with Mubarak and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Abbas said: "We have said - and we continue to say - that we are ready to resume the talks once settlement construction is halted and international terms of reference are recognized as the basis for the negotiations."
In response to another question about whether he saw Netanyahu's latest ideas [which were discussed during last week's talks with Mubarak] as encouraging, Abbas said: "We will judge these ideas after the visit of [Egyptian] Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and General Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to the US. They will discuss these ideas in Washington and everything will become clear afterwards. I don't want to judge ideas that now seem to be unclear."
Senior officials in Jerusalem said Abbas seemed to be leaving the door open for negotiations, and that the nuance and tone of his comments were not as unequivocally against entering into negotiations with Israel as in the past.
For instance, the official said, this was the first time in a while that Abbas has said he was not opposed to entering into negotiations or holding meetings with the Netanyahu government. The overall assessment in Jerusalem is that there has been a bit of a change in the "music" coming from the PA.
This apparently was what Netanyahu had in mind when he said at the Likud faction meeting on Monday that "in recent weeks, there has been a change of atmosphere. I hope that the time is now ripe to move the peace process forward."
He said that Palestinian preconditions for talks had wasted precious time that could have been spent negotiating a real agreement, rather than a framework for talks.
"I believe that negotiations about the nature of negotiations have delayed the process enough and should be dropped," the prime minister said.
He said it was obvious that each side would be free to raise its positions around the negotiating table. But, he said, Israel insisted that the results of the negotiations be determined in talks at the end of the process, and certainly not by preconditions at the very beginning.
Meanwhile, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for Abbas, accused Israel of "continuing to avoid its commitments" to the peace process. He said that Israel was continuing settlement construction and military incursions into Palestinian communities, while also ignoring the road map for peace in the Middle East.
Abu Rudaineh, who is accompanying Abbas on his current tour of a number of Arab countries, said that the PA did not want to hold meetings to waste time. The PA, he added, was prepared to return to the negotiations, but only on the basis of a freeze of settlement construction, and if the ultimate goal was clear. Abbas is insisting that the framework of the talks be a Palestinian state with the pre-1967 lines as its borders, a formula that Netanyahu does not accept.
Abu Rudaineh explained that "entering negotiations with Israel without clarity means that the talks would be fruitless."
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman meanwhile met on Monday with visiting Quartet envoy Tony Blair and said that it was important to hold a "frank dialogue" with the Palestinians, without creating any illusions that would only cause more frustration and lead to violence.
Lieberman said it was unrealistic to solve the border issue in nine months, and - as the Palestinians are demanding - to set a two-year deadline for reaching a final agreement.
According to a statement put out by his office, Lieberman said that what was needed was to start direct talks without committing to a deadline.
Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein, who is the only resident of Judea and Samaria among the Likud ministers, said he warned Netanyahu on Sunday against going too far to bring about negotiations with the Palestinians. He said that he and other Likud MKs were "getting ready to fight" against diplomatic concessions, just in case.
MK Danny Danon intended to criticize Netanyahu on diplomatic issues in Monday's Likud faction meeting, but the prime minister insisted that following his own statement about potential talks with the PA, the two-hour meeting would deal solely with the Likud's stance on the loyalty oath bill of Israel Beiteinu MK David Rotem, which is unlikely to be brought to a vote due to the Labor Party's veto.
Danon charged that Netanyahu was trying to avoid criticism. He warned security cabinet ministers in meetings on Monday that "Netanyahu will end up leading us back to pre-1967 borders."
Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339395393&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
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