Wednesday, January 08, 2014

No End to Palestinian Claims: How Israel and the Palestinians View Borders

Pinhas Inbari
  • An internal, strategic document formulated in the office of Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in 2013 states that the aim of the current U.S.-led talks is not to reach an agreement but, rather, to create an alibi for imposing a solution on Israel. The Palestinians agreed to enter the talks only after receiving a written commitment from Kerry to support the Palestinian position on the 1967 lines.
  • However, there have been repeated signs that the Palestinian leadership has claims to Israeli territory within the 1967 lines. In 1999, the PLO was planning to replace the Oslo Accords with Palestinian territorial demands based on the Partition Map that appeared in UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947 and thereby extend Palestinian territorial claims.
  • After Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005, the Palestinians demanded the annexation to Gaza of the Israeli border village of Netiv Ha'asara. In negotiations over the water issue, the Palestinians demand not only the water of the West Bank and Gaza, but also a division of the Israeli aquifer and the Sea of Galilee. They also claim sovereignty over the al-Hama enclave in the Golan Heights because it was part of the British Mandate for Palestine.
  • In September 2011, Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly that he was applying for UN membership "on the basis of the 1967 borders." But in the formal Palestinian submission to the UN, there is no reference whatsoever to the 1967 lines but only to Resolution 181 from 1947. Thus, there is considerable, cumulative evidence that the Palestinian leadership is maintaining claims to Israeli territory within the 1967 lines.
Pinhas Inbari is a veteran Palestinian affairs correspondent who formerly reported for Israel Radio and Al Hamishmar newspaper, and currently serves as an analyst on the Palestinian issue for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
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