From the JTA:
Top White House officials briefed Jewish community leaders about a Quartet statement urging Israelis and Palestinians to return to talks with no preconditions, a key Israeli demand.
“The Quartet reiterated its urgent appeal to the parties to overcome the current obstacles and resume direct bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations without delay or preconditions,” said a statement released Friday evening by the grouping of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union that guides Middle East peace talks.
Officials, including Dennis Ross, President Obama’s top Middle East adviser, pitched the statement to the Jewish listeners as a major accomplishment in Israel’s favor.
Seems some on the call still wanted more:
The Anti-Defamation League praised the call for talks without preconditions, but expressed reservations about a timeline and parameters.
“We believe the Quartet erred in setting a preliminary agenda limited to issues of security and borders and timetables for proposals,” the ADL said in a statement. “By going as far as it does, the Quartet statement misses an opportunity to send the clearest possible message to the Palestinians that the sole path to statehood lies in direct negotiations with Israel.”
quartet is a waste of time; it exists simply to internationalize and further legitimize israel’s tactic of obstruction and temporazation while its colonists grab ever more of the west bank and east jerusalem. Israel will stretch out negotiations forever if it can and the quartet is only there to help this happen.
Abbas should just forget about negotiations for the time being and concentrate on UN recognition; doing so may not work, it may backfire, but its the best of the bad range of choices facing him; hopefully and independent Palestine will be able to gain its fast disappearing leverage for dealing with israel and the us
The bottom line is this: the conflict will NEVER resolve under American or Israeli mediation. It was undoubtedly justified for the Palestinian leadership to internationalize the conflict via UN recognition due to intentional meddleing by the US to prevent any progress. The sole hope for a fair and just peace is through the international community. Period
“By going as far as it does, the Quartet statement misses an opportunity to send the clearest possible message to the Palestinians
The Palestinians sent the Quartet a message. The declaration attached to its membership application to the Security Council reminded that the Road Map (which it adopted) contains conditions:
See A/66/371–S/2011/592
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2011/592
when the usa isn’t selling peace agreements it is selling military arms… not sure where this country is coming from on the export front…
Halting all settlement expansion is not a precondition. It is both common sense (pizza analogy) and an Israeli obligation according to the Oslo Accords.
I’m sure that Dershowitz would argue that building on Palestinian private and public land and moving hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens into the West Bank does not actually change its “status”, but any idiot can see that Israel has been violating both the letter and the spirit of that article for almost 16 years to the day (signed 28 September, 1995).