Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks: Jordan To Host Meeting

JERUSALEM — Israel and the Palestinians said Sunday that their chief peace negotiators would attend a gathering of international diplomats in neighboring Jordan this week, bringing the sides together for the first time in more than a year.

Officials stressed that the meeting would not be a formal negotiating session. Nonetheless, it could mark an important step toward restarting peace talks, which broke down in September 2010.

"The upcoming meeting is part of serious and continuous efforts to reach a common ground to resume the direct negotiations," said Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Kayed.

He said Jordan's foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, would host the meeting of Israeli and Palestinian representatives with teams from the international Quartet of Mideast mediators.

The Quartet, consisting of the U.S., European Union, Russia and the United Nations, has repeatedly tried to restart negotiations with the goal of forging a final peace agreement this year.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomed the move. "We are hopeful that this direct exchange can help move us forward on the pathway proposed by the Quartet," she said in a statement. "The status quo is not sustainable and the parties must act boldly to advance the cause of peace."

Judeh is expected to hold a separate meeting with the Israelis and Palestinians, Kayed said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said his chief envoy, Yitzhak Molcho, would attend the meeting, while the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said he would go.

The meeting comes about six weeks after Jordanian King Abdullah II made a rare visit to the West Bank for talks with the Palestinians. Abdullah, who often serves as a mediator, hosted Israeli President Shimon Peres the following week.

Peace efforts have been largely frozen since December 2008. Israel and the Palestinians briefly resumed negotiations in September 2010 only to see them break down after several weeks when an Israeli moratorium on settlement construction expired.

The Palestinians have said they will not resume peace talks unless Israel freezes settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem – captured territories that they claim for their independent state. With some 500,000 Israelis now living in these areas, the Palestinians say continued settlement construction is a sign of bad faith. Israel says talks should resume without preconditions.

The Quartet has urged Israel and the Palestinians to submit proposals for security arrangements and final borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state. The Palestinians have already submitted proposals. Israel says it will only do so if negotiations resume.

The Palestinians say Israel should commit to withdrawing to its lines before the 1967 Mideast war – when it captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem – as the basis of a final border.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Erekat urged Israel "to use this opportunity to stop all settlement construction and accept the two state solution on the 1967 borders."

Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected calls to return to the 1967 lines.

His office said Molcho would head to Amman "to participate in the Quartet meeting." It gave no further details.

___

Halaby reported from Amman, Jordan. Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.

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Comments

[irichman]

01:34 PM on 01/03/2012

Move the Palestinians to Jordan as they were ruled by Jordan prior to 1967. They are Jordanese citizens. Move Gaza (Hamas) to Egypt as they were Egyptian citizens prior to 1967. Israel does not need murderers, terrorists, and people who send their children and women to be suicide bombers, on their borders. Israel is a very small country. There never was a Palestinian land and there should be none. We have 22 Arab states. That is sufficient. They are all dictatorships. Israel should move out the Palestinians and the Gazans to countries in which they are citizens. Let us all remember that the Palestinians jumped and clapped on 9/11/2001 when the World Trade Centers were demolished and 3000 people died. They also name streets after suicide bombers. If this happened to US from Mexico, the US would have invaded Mexico and killed all the terrorists. Israel should do the same and get rid of the cancers on their borders. Obama has now made the Middle East into a cauldron of terrorists with the Muslim Brotherhood and surrounded Israel with all terrorist countries. Israel has enough to do with Iran threatening to annihilate them.

[Cynthia Rays]

01:57 PM on 01/03/2012

So, where is your family originally from or are you a Native American? Why don't you move back? why should a Palestinian leave his home where his great grandparents were born to make room for an American or Russian who claims to have a Jewish grandmother? Israel placed itself on someone else's property.

[irichman]

02:15 PM on 01/03/2012

Let us go back to 3000 years in history. All this land and that land beyond Jordan was controlled by the Jewish people. With all the invasions by the Byzantines, Philistines, Romans, Muslim Crusaders (who occupied the land that belonged to the Jewish people), the Jews were pushed into Spain, Russia, Germany, Hungary, North Africa by all the invaders. Now the Jewish people are in their own land and they welcome all Jewish people into this wonderful country. The Arabs control 99.9% of the Middle East, out of which all 22 countries are dictatorships, and kill people who are not Muslims, and burn churches of Christian people. The Arabs are making the Palestinians (never a country) a bone of contention so their own population does not concentrate on their dictatorships. This land does not belong to the Arabs. They have plenty of land to resettle the Palestinians-never a country-so named by the British. Move them out to other Arab lands in which they were originally citizens and never complained about having their own country. This was started by murderer and terrorist, Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian, so he could collect billions of dollars from Arab countries. He died a multi billionaire and left the Palestinians in refugeee camps and poor. That is how Arabs oppress their own people.

[Cynthia Rays]

02:04 PM on 01/03/2012

Streets and villages in Israel were renamed. To the native people living there, the Palestinians those new names after the Stern gang and Irgun fighters are the names of terrorists. Begin blew up the King David Hotel.

[bubbyejm]

09:53 AM on 01/04/2012

Yes - the King David Hotel was blown up - but didn't you "forget" the FACT that they were warned to get out of the hotel before it was to be blown up and the British didn't believe the caller

[Yarden]

02:22 AM on 01/03/2012

Ofcourse the PA calls negotiatio­ns a waste of time. Abbas tries to have a state running to the UN, tries to fix unilateral­ly its borders, tries to avoid the security arrangemen­ts that should be agreed upon, without ending the conflict by a peace treaty, and without a settlement of refugeees problem. How is Israel suppose to negotiate when these preconditi­ons must be fulfilled before Abbas sits down to talk peace? So not only Abbas violates the Oslo Accords by this action but his bid also contradict­s Resolution 242( The arab bloc has a very restrictiv­e view of 242).

The United States endorsed Oslo Accords which is an agreement to negotiate a final settlement of various topics, is the only solution to this conflict. Since Camp David, Barak, Arrafat and Clinton agreed that the outcome should be a two state solution, but there was no obligation to finish it that way in the written agreements­. The only true outcome should be a negotiated agreement between Israel and Palestine, without any pre conditions by both partie

[myaa]

09:04 PM on 01/02/2012

I just hope I could fast forward through all this charade just to see what and how an eventual agreement is achieved.

[fapescia]

06:58 PM on 01/02/2012

When Iran finally acquires a conventional arsenal of long range missles capable of hitting the apartment of an official of the Entity in Tel Aviv, real talks can begin with the removal of all settlements beyond the Green line. Even French Hill must be turned over to the Palestinians.

[goldymg10]

07:30 PM on 01/02/2012

Is you thought that Iran's long range capabilities for war will somehow improve the chances of peace? Do you really believe that if Israel were afraid of Iran ,that that would improve relations between Israel and the Palestinians? Do you really believe that Iran actually cares about the Palesinians?

[lordclane]

09:34 PM on 01/02/2012

I know. I know. The Arabs have to be given militarily useful jump-off points to launch their own "final solution" and achieve their ultimate goal: destruction of what they regard as the infidel state of Israel.....

[gibranII]

11:03 PM on 01/02/2012

the final solution is another generalization used to prolong this conflcit... it seems that both sides have dreamed of a greater vision... the Likud and hamas both have hoped for a greater version of their country...one does it with a slow and systematic practice of oppression and use of disappropriate response and the extremists of hamas with rockets launched by radicals that dont listen to anyone... both are wrong.

[Relpo Miraculous]

05:52 PM on 01/02/2012

Revival? Where? On Broadway?

[slowhanddean]

05:50 PM on 01/02/2012

I think Israel has been very good a restraint. How many times do we hear that the Palistinians have fired thousands of rockets into Israel and when they respond Israel is ripped for trying to protect thier people. I'm not Jewish or even believe in organized religion but if my neighbor kept shooting bullets into my home and refused to stop I would stop them. How many times do you talk before enough is enough.

[dougsabbag]

06:46 PM on 01/02/2012

How about if you stole your home from your neighbor? And your neighbor is now a REFUGEE because of being displaced by you?
Would you "understand" why your neighbor is firing everything from rockets to rocks at you then?

Assuming you are an American, you know this could not happen to you, or to your neighbor, because we enjoy Justice for ALL. But in Israel it is Justice for some, and definetly not for the Palestinians.

So, Israel would do much better if they employed Justice for ALL to resolve the plight of the refugees instead of exercising "restraint" with only occasional massacres.......

[joeconvex]

08:00 PM on 01/02/2012

So Hamas has the right to fire missile at innocent civilians, including their schools?

Do any OTHER "refugees" have that right? or just Palestinians?

Israel is not trying rid Gaza of Arabs, but the elected representatives of Gaza are intent upon killing every Jew in Israel, and around the world.

The Hamas prime minister recently declared - again - his aim:
"We will liberate Palestine in Its entirety, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River"
See http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/41458.htm

Does Hamas have a special exemption to seek a genocide?

[dougsabbag]

08:47 PM on 01/02/2012

Why would you ever say that anyone has the "right" to commit any atrocity on people?
Nobody ever does.

So, now that we agree on that logic, guess what, the Palestinians do not deserve to be abused, massacred, displaced from stolen property, blockaded into a tiny area of land, or any of the other abuses they have sufferred from.

Or don't you agree now?

[goldymg10]

07:33 PM on 01/02/2012

You are correct...But the naysayers will always come back and say that Israel's military response is not comensurate with the incoming roockets they receive..In other words, because Israel has many contingency plans in order to keep their citizens safe and there are rarely any casualties then they should also send crude rockets and aim away from the terrorists that are firing so that they also will kill no one..This is how they think. Tey have said and will continue to believe that way-same as they did in the recent Lebanon War.

[slowhanddean]

07:58 PM on 01/02/2012

If Israel fired as many rockets back as are fire in the would be no Palistinians left. Do people really believe that if they had better rockets they wouldn't use them? I keep hearing about the starving Palistinians and other third world countries. If they would put more effort into providing food than hating and killing it would be a start. Of course it will never change because the ones in charge would lose all of thier power. Just look at the 2 farmers in India who think killing a seven year old girl and cutting out her liver would make them have good crops. This is the kind of mentality many of thier leaders have.

[Truth Has A Liberal Bias]

05:44 PM on 01/02/2012

*yawn* Not holding my breath.....

[bellmotor]

05:39 PM on 01/02/2012

stop war mongering! long live world peace and Happy 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_exist

[dougsabbag]

07:03 PM on 01/02/2012

Easy for you to say, you are not a REFUGEE.
You are not living in a blockaded area as part of your COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT.
Your home is not being bulldozed to make room for a settlement.
You are not a second class citizen / you are enjoying Justice for ALL, and Equality under the LAW.
Sure, Happy New Year.

[goldymg10]

07:36 PM on 01/02/2012

I would like to know why not one other country in the region will take any Palestinian refugees to their country. Israel took in millions over the years from many other countries..They don't care about the Palestiniians, unfortunatly. Let's bee serious. The Palestinians have had a civil war going on for a few years Fatch Vs Hammas. Until they settle their difference they are in noo shape to try to form any kind of relationship with another country-Israel.

[Shaun West]

11:40 PM on 01/02/2012

Guess what? Much of Israel's population were former REFUGEES who were expelled from Arab lands when a Israeli state was formed purely because they were Jewish. Besides for their lands being taken, there were several massacres, which eventually led to the expulsion of 900,000+ Sephardic Jews from Arab lands from 1948-67.
They actually integrated into other countries, including Israel.

Arab Israelis, living in Israel are actually full fledged citizens - "justice for ALL" and equality is actually quite prevalent in Israel. However, in respects to their Palestinian neighbors, which unfortunately live under Ha.mas' ter.rorist's reign, Israel must act accordingly to protect its citizens from rocket attacks, bus/suicide bombing, kidnapping, etc.
Now, if you really want to discuss second class citizens, you should read up on the treatment of Palestinians in neighboring Lebanon and Jordan. There, many Palestinians can't own land, get health care, work permits, etc. So why is that everyone wishes to only pick on Israel, who's actually being ter.rorized?

[cakesandeggs]

05:21 PM on 01/02/2012

There will never be peace in the region until each side acknowledges that the other has a right to exist, amen.

[dougsabbag]

07:06 PM on 01/02/2012

AND, the oppressors stop oppressing people. Stop stealing their land. Stop treating them as second class citizens. Stop massacring them every so often, (operation Caste Lead).
Stop blockading people as a COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT.

Perhaps if the REFUGEES plight was resolved with Justice for ALL, instead of bullets, peace might eventually be sustainable. But, not until THEN.

[Shaun West]

12:07 AM on 01/03/2012

Israel has border patrol as the US for Mexico. The only difference is that Israel must react according to the situation it's in - that is, daily rocket attacks, occasional bus/suicide bombing, which is all government sponsored by Hamas (which led to Cast Lead).

In 1948, while the Arabs were under British rule they had 2 option - live as full citizens in Israel (as 1.6 million Arab Israelis do) or live under the very first "Palestinian" state ever. They rejected both because they couldn't stand to see a Jewish state. They went to war and lost. Every since then they have been trying to get back what they rejected 60+ years, much of with ter.rorism.

For there to be a peace all forms of violence must stop. Then you can get "Justice for ALL." However, you can't expect someone to sit down with you while your citizens are being bombarded with rockets...

[goldymg10]

01:38 PM on 01/03/2012

Here are a few facts for Gibran11.
1. Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE. Two thousand years before the rise of Islam.
2. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE,the Jews have had dominion over the land for 1,000 years with a continuous precense in the land for the past 3300 years.
3. The only arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than 22 years.
4. For over 3300 years ,Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity.
5. In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouranged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. 68% left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
6. Arab refugees were intentionally not absorbed or integrated into the Arab world lands to which they fled,despite the vast Arab territory.Out of the 100 million refugees since WW11,theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed into their own peooples lands. Jewish refugees were completely absoorbed into Israel, ac ountry no larger than the state of NJ.
I could go on and on..But llet's put the blame foor the misfortunes of the Palestiniians on their own people..

[gibranII]

02:50 PM on 01/03/2012

nice revision...5 is pure hasbra bs

[teabagmetos]

05:15 PM on 01/02/2012

Israel is quickly approaching a day of reckoning, either the 2 State solution, or a one state solution with equal citizenship and compensatory damages

[teabagmetos]

04:41 PM on 01/02/2012

After 50 years of telling Russia to tear down the Berlin Wall this is enough reason right here for America to cut Israel off from all funding !!

[teabagmetos]

04:44 PM on 01/02/2012

OOps forgot my link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Niwmrp3KO5o

[goldymg10]

07:38 PM on 01/02/2012

Maybe so. But you must cut off the Palestinians also ; and Egypt; Lebanon; Saudoi Arabia and all the other Muslim countries.

[gibranII]

11:08 PM on 01/02/2012

why.. are they violating laws by building settlements?

[flora489]

03:25 PM on 01/02/2012

Had Israel taken care of these issues back in 1948 when she became a Nation, all hese years of fighting would never have taken place. Instead, she kicked out all the Arabs that had been living on the land for hundreds of years .Of course, there would be animosity a friction as a result. It is now time to recognize these exiles as Palistinians and treat them as a nation, with the courtesies due them. Israel should stop using excuses such as Hamas and stop encroaching on land that rightly belongs to the Palistinians.

[Kramerica-Industries]

03:35 PM on 01/02/2012

Around that time tens of million of people were removed from their homes been as part of people exchanges. Only few hundreds of thousand are being demanded to be returned to their homes and those are the Palestinians. Not even the greater number of Jews which were removed from their homes around that time in Arab states.
Not even the thousands of Jews that were removed from their homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem at the exact same conflict. Yes every last inch and every last home which the Arab army took hold of was cleansed from every last Jew. Yet even in the same exact conflict only one people have "rights".
Just a couple of years ago The European court for human rights made a rulling there is no "right of return" in the case of greeks from Cpyrus because time have passed and things have changed. But there will always be one special people out there. The ever victim Palestinians.

[teabagmetos]

04:24 PM on 01/02/2012

How convienient, Stall for time and drown people out of their rightfull inheritance, Kind of the way Wall street works. The Palistinians lived there and the Jews moved there, but we cant let that get in the way.

[Cynthia Rays]

05:20 PM on 01/02/2012

Yisrael Yeshayahu, former speaker of the Knesset: "We are not refugees.... We had messianic aspirations."

Shlomo Hillel, former minister and speaker of the Knesset: "I don't regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."

During a Knesset hearing into the matter, Ran Cohen, Knesset member: "I am not a refugee....I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee."
(Ha'aretz, October 8, 2004)

[anton123]

03:38 PM on 01/02/2012

Have you heard about Partition of Palestine?
It was Arab side that refused the Partition in 1948 and 4 Ara b armies invaded young state of Israel.
So how exactly Israel was supposed to "taken care of these issues back in 1948"?

[dougsabbag]

06:54 PM on 01/02/2012

They could have followed the UN advisement to either allow the displaced refugees to return to their "confiscated" homes, or PAID them for their losses.

That is how they could have taken care of this issue way back then.

In retrospect, do you think it was really worth what they saved by not paying them for the land they "confiscated"???

[Kramerica-Industries]

03:21 PM on 01/02/2012

There is a big diffrence in approaches to the peace talks between both sides.
While the Israeli side is looking to sign a deal that would end the conflict the Palestinian side are looking to gain what they can now and still maintian the ability to take over the rest of Israel in the future.
Even the "hawkish" Prime minister Netanyahu says he want two states for two people, Palestinian leadership says they will never agree to that, there will be one state for the Palestinian people but not a state for the Jewish people, a state with a temporary Jewish majority they intend to do what they can to turn to another Palestinian state.
They insist millions of Palestinians will be moved to Israel, they insist no Palestinian town who's people are currently holding Israeli IDs will be moved under Palestinian control.
Can you imagine that? There are going to the US governemt when Israel builds a few homes on what they consider part of their land, but Israel is willing to offer them to take in cities with thousands of their own people. Offering the Palestinian people to live under control of the a Palestinian government, and that government refuse to take their own people.
Why? Because they count on those voters to one day be part of taking over Israel and annexing it to the greater Palestine.

[soldier123]

04:11 PM on 01/02/2012

I could not have said it any better. I totally agree . I am you fan. I suport Israel and its people
Shalom to you for the New Year

[Kramerica-Industries]

04:26 PM on 01/02/2012

Thanks have a good year.

[dougsabbag]

07:01 PM on 01/02/2012

The Israelis say they want peace while they continue to steal more and more land, and continue to oppress the people they are stealing the land from.
That is NOT a path to peace, now is it?

[Kramerica-Industries]

03:35 AM on 01/03/2012

With all that "land stealing" Israel still offered the Palestinians in 2008-2009 a state 100% the size they asked for day one of negotiations started.
Palestinian leadership belives time is on their side and there is no need to make the necessary concessions since every offer tomorrow will be better than the one they get today.
Settlements are the only whip to put some urgency in the Palestinians and get them to sign a peace deal. It is the only way where Israel can say an offer tomorrow might not be as good as the one today so stop wasting out time, by saying no to every single offer.

[fworfe]

03:01 PM on 01/02/2012

It is amazing what can be done between two mortal enemies when the cameras are withdrawn, when other countries lose patience and interest in peacemaking futility, when the combatants no longer benefit from being world nuisances, when they realize they are their own worst enemies and their future depends upon themselves and only upon themselves.
Simply stated, the world powers are no longer willing to be so scandalously used by and in the Israeli-Palestinian ceaseless wrangle. And it is still another, maybe the real last, 'now-or-never' opportunity to get the ducks in a row, and peace will come only when both sides want peace, not before.

[teabagmetos]

03:20 PM on 01/02/2012

That and the internet and social media has made it near immpossible for either side to camoflage their abuses !

[howlar2]

03:01 PM on 01/02/2012

What, is this like the 60th year already?