You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:
In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:
1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process
Recently, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, made his 10th trip to the Middle East in an effort to try to achieve a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Following meetings with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas, Kerry said: “the two sides are not there yet but we are making progress and we are beginning to have dialogue on the toughest hurdles yet to be overcome. This is hard work. There have been many years of mistrust that have been built up, all of which has to be worked through and undone, and a pathway has to be laid down on which the parties can have confidence that they know what is happening, and the road ahead is real, and not illusory. However, the path is becoming clearer. The puzzle is becoming more defined, and it is becoming much more apparent to everybody what the remaining tough choices are,” he said. Kerry said all of the major issues in the conflict – borders, security, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem – were under discussion and that any US Middle East peace plan would be “fair and balanced”.
A US official said that one of the main obstacles holding up the framework deal is each side’s demand that their reservations over the framework appear as a separate appendix in the final text, rather than as part of the main text which details the areas of common ground in the talks. “It is essential that if there are reservations, they will be part of the framework, not a separate part. Otherwise, it would damage the agreement. For example, if the framework includes a clause stating that the negotiations will be based on the 1967 borders, we cannot agree to a reservation stating that one of the sides opposes this,” the official said. Any agreed framework would not be a signed document, but would address all core issues, including the borders between Israel and a future Palestine, security, Palestinian refugees, and conflicting claims to Jerusalem, the official said. The official also said if the parties agreed on a framework for negotiating a final peace deal, it might not be made public to avoid exposing the leaders to political pressures at home. The US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, said that a US framework proposal will be presented to both sides soon within the next several weeks.
Israel Knesset member, Amir Peretz said that the two sides were attempting not get to a “framework agreement,” but rather to a “framework” for future negotiations. He explained that a framework agreement would be a document that both sides would have to sign, something that does not seem possible at present. Instead, he said, Kerry would present a framework that would form the basis for further negotiations and to which each side could append its reservations. This type of framework would enable the negotiations to continue past their late-April deadline.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told members of his Likud political party that “there is no American framework document yet,” and that even if it could be agreed, it would not be binding on the sides. Netanyahu said there would be elements in the non-binding paper that he and his party colleagues wouldn’t like and elements that the Palestinians wouldn’t like. US Secretary of State John Kerry is working on a document spelling out America’s basic principles for a peace agreement that both sides – with reservations – are to agree to follow as a framework for continuing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Israel officials said that if this particular track toward extending the negotiations beyond the late April deadline bears fruit, then both Israel and the Palestinians are expected to say that the positions reflected in the document are American positions – not necessarily ones they accept – but that they will continue to negotiate based on the American document. Among the issues expected to be difficult for Israel to swallow is a declaration that the endgame is a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines, with minor land swaps. And among the bitter pills for the Palestinians is expected to be a formula recognizing Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and making clear that the Palestinian refugees are to be absorbed in the future Palestinian state. He also assured the Likud MKs that he had not given in to American pressure for more flexible positions regarding the fate of Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, and said he was only too aware of the consequences of dismantling West Bank settlements in the absence of a viable peace accord. Furthermore, Netanyahu said that the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the Palestinian Authorities’ encouragement of incitement against Israel and the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “This incitement, unfortunately, continues,” Netanyahu said, adding that “We have seen aspects of this recently. We are not foreigners in Jerusalem, we are not foreigners in Beit El, we are not foreigners in Hebron. I repeat that this is the root of the conflict as well as the root of incitement that does not recognize this basic fact” to have a Jewish state.
Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said: “I want to clarify that we are now engaged in an attempt to reach the framework of the continued negotiations for a period beyond the nine months [given for a deal]. We are not engaged in negotiating a framework for a [permanent] agreement, but the framework for further negotiations,” Yaalon continued. “It is clear to us that there are large gaps [between us] – and this is not new – but it is certainly in our interest to continue negotiations and to continue to work to stabilize the situation in the relationship between us and the Palestinians. We stand to defend the security interests of Israel and I have made my opinion heard several times. The heart of the conflict is the PA’s refusal to recognize Israel as a sovereign state; and regarding security issues relevant for the State of Israel, I will be a tough nut to crack.” In addition, Ya’along said that peace cannot be achieved until the PA stops its incitement against Israel and starts educating for peace instead. “A basic element in Israeli education is the aspiration for peace. In the Palestinian Authority, that doesn’t exist. The first stage of the road map, that obligates the PA to stop the incitement and to educate for peace, did not happen. [Former prime minister] Yitzhak Rabin demanded in Oslo that the Palestinian treaty is also changed, and it hasn’t been changed to this very day either,” Ya’alon said. “The Palestinians receive money from states that donate to educational institutes in the PA and still teach incitement and racism based on Adolf Hitler quotes. They claim there is no Jewish people,” he added. According to other senior Israel officials, there is no guarantee that either side would agree to a deal lengthening talks. The PA has stated that they would prefer to give an oral agreement to continue talks rather than sign a document – to evade responsibility, perhaps, in the event that talks fail.
If Israel accepts the US framework proposal, Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is planning to have a national referendum on the issue. Netanyahu was quoted as saying that he needs the referendum to push back “domestic pressures from the right”, but in any case he believes it will be politically advantageous. He has confided to his closest circle that for the first time that he is in favor of the Kerry proposals and, although they don’t see eye to eye on many of the issues, he thinks the gaps between them can be bridged. Netanyahu is counting on the framework accord gaining an overwhelming popular majority in referendum. Netanyahu regards the Obama administration’s acceptance of Israel as the Jewish national state to be an historic achievement of unparalleled importance. He was encouraged to learn that Kerry is working on a formula that avoids citing E. Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, only as a goal for their national aspirations. Intense exchanges are gong back and forth on the security arrangements for the Jordan Valley which runs along Israel’s eastern border, and the number and area of the Jewish settlements remaining under Israeli sovereignty. A number of settlements outside the main blocs are due for removal, despite reports to the contrary but the argument among the Americans, Israelis and Palestinians is over a timetable for their staged evacuation which is counted in years.
In order to pressure Israel into accepting a US framework agreement, Israel government sources are saying that US Secretary of State, John Kerry, is behind calling for a European boycott against Israeli products and companies operating in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The EU published its guidelines last July, boycotting Israeli companies operating over the 1949 Armistice lines. At the moment, Kerry is making sure the threats stay in check, but as soon as the peace talks fail he intends to open the floodgates and spur on full-blown international boycotts on Israel, reports Israel radio.
Meanwhile, Kerry has threatened to discontinue all US aid to the Palestinian Authority if the current round of negotiations does not result in a peace agreement according to a senior Palestinian official. Taysir Khaled, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, said that the US had implied it would stop giving financial aid to the Palestinian Authority and would not be able to prevent Israeli expansion of West Bank settlements, if a framework for a long-lasting accord was not agreed upon. “So far, the negotiations have not lead to a significant breakthrough on core issues,” Khaled said. ”The Palestinian side cannot sign a framework agreement because it does not comply with our minimum requirements and with rights of the Palestinians. We will not give up on the Palestinian cause for money.” Another Palestinian official said that Kerry and the Palestinian leadership, “talked about everything but without agreement on anything” The Palestinians say that they have presented their positions on all the issues to Kerry.
Palestinian spokesman Yasser Abed Rabbo said that Kerry’s conversations with Abbas “was very tough indeed”, in particular when it came to the US wish for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “The Americans have made it very clear that [recognition of Israel as a Jewish state] is their position. They talk about it in meetings with our side and make an issue out of it. We have made it very clear that we are not going to sign any agreement that recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.” Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Palestinians’ refusal to formally acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state has become the key topic in his discussions with Kerry.
After meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas, Kerry went to Saudi Arabia to try to convince Saudi Arabia to change the language in the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative to include recognition of Israel as a Jewish State should the country reach a peace deal with the Palestinians. The changed language would also include the stipulation that Israel’s Arab citizens not be affected by recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. The current language in the Arab Peace initiative calls for the Arab world to offer comprehensive peace with Israel in exchange for a full pullout from all territories it captured in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians have not given permission for any changes to the Arab League initiative. Kerry is expected to meet in Paris soon with Arab League foreign ministers who sit on the monitoring committee of the Arab Peace Initiative and may present the idea to them. After that meeting, he is expected to return to the Middle East for another round of shuttle diplomacy between Israel and the Palestinians.
Regarding the issue of Jerusalem, US Secretary of State John Kerry has proposed designating “greater Jerusalem” as the capital of both Israel and the Palestinian state. Azzam Al-Ahmad, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee said that Kerry was “elusive” when speaking of the exclusion of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. “An ambiguous term such as ‘greater Jerusalem’ in [Kerry’s] proposal could reach the Dead Sea, and could [equally] not include [the Palestinian village of] Abu Dis,” Al-Ahmad said. ”This [ambiguity] destroys all American efforts to reach a peace agreement.” A senior Palestinian source said that Abbas had demanded a clear and unequivocal reference to the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, out of concern that a more general reference would be interpreted as Palestinian willingness to establish their capital in one of the city’s outlying suburbs.
Meanwhile, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told cabinet ministers that he would not accept any reference to Jerusalem in the framework agreement being drafted by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. One senior official said Netanyahu stressed that he would not agree to a document that mentions, even in a general way, the establishment of a Palestinian capital anywhere in Jerusalem. Netanyahu made it clear he would insist on this, even at the cost of the failure of the talks on the framework agreement.
With regards to the Jordan Valley, Al-Ahmad said the Palestinians rejected any Israeli presence under a final status agreement but agreed to international forces patrolling the border. He added that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert had already agreed to forgo the Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley during talks with Abbas. However, Israel rejects any US-proposed security concessions for the Jordan Valley. “Security must remain in our hands. Anyone who proposes a solution in the Jordan Valley by deploying an international force, Palestinian police or technological means … does not understand the Middle East,” said Israel Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz.
Regarding Palestinian refugees, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has proposed to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas the “return” of 80, 000 Palestinian “refugees” to Israel according to a senior Palestinian official. He added: “Kerry’s proposal on the return of refugees is the same proposal offered by former U.S. President Bill Clinton during Camp David peace talks held in the United States in 2000.” He added that during their meetings with Kerry, Abbas wanted to increase the number of Arabs “returning” to Israel to 200,000.
However, Israel officials said that accepting the principle of a Palestinian “right of return” is a complete non-starter for Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. “In the framework of two states for two peoples, those Palestinians who want to return to the Palestinian state will be able to do so, but the idea that Israel will take in any of the grandchildren of people who fled the fighting in 1948 is simply a non-starter,” the official said. Netanyahu would not agree to even “a symbolic acceptance of the so-call right of return.”
If Benjamin Netanyahu decides to support the US framework agreement and it calls for a Palestinian state based upon 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital then the Jewish Home political party said that it will not be part of a government that negotiates the 1967 borders. Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett said: “No more word games: the 1967 lines mean dividing Jerusalem and giving up the Western Wall, the Temple Mount and the Old City. In what way will our history remember a leader that agrees to give up Jerusalem? We won’t sit in such a government.” In addition, the Sephardic Orthodox Jewish party, Shas, and its leader Aryeh Deri said that his party would not give Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government a “safety net,” refusing to form a new coalition to enable a peace deal loaded with Israeli withdrawals and stressed that he would oppose any agreement that harms the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria or the West Bank. Deri said that it was his impression that the talks are seriously advancing towards an agreement.
However, the opposition party, Labor, and its leader Yitzchak Herzog said that despite his party’s strong antipathy to the current government, Labor will do everything necessary to ensure that any peace proposals or frameworks offered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will be adopted by the Knesset. Labor, he said, would step in to bolster coalition partners supporting the proposals, casting their votes in favor to make up for the ones that would be cast against it by rightwing parties. “We will provide a safety net for the government” in the event of a vote on a peace proposal, said Herzog. “We must ensure that Israel remain a Jewish and democratic state, living peacefully alongside a Palestinian state, with recognized borders that ensure our security.” However, Herzog said that in any agreement with the Palestinians that they must give up the “right of return” which is the demand that the descendants of Arabs who fled the newly-established state in 1948 return to their family’s property. Labor would not support a deal that included that demand. “That is outside the consensus,” Herzog said.
Finally, a new academic research institute will be founded to explore the issue of declaring Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria or the West Bank. The decision to start the institute was made at the Forum for Application of Sovereignty which met under the initiative of the Women in Green organization. Among various topics, the institute intends to investigate economic implications of sovereignty in terms of real estate and industry. Similarly, the international legal framework of sovereignty will be researched, along with the media outreach efforts necessary. The central goal of the institute will be to present the Israeli public and government with the conclusions of solid research by leading academics within a few months. The decision to found the institute comes as an outgrowth of previous large conferences calling for sovereignty, as well as the journal Sovereignty published by Women in Green. The second issue of the publication was released last week.
An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.
The link to these articles are as follows:
1) Kerry: Israel, Palestinians progressing toward framework peace deal
2) Kerry praises ‘intensive’ talks, to return Sunday night
3) Abbas aide: Palestinian President had ‘tough talk’ with Kerry
4) US ambassador: Draft on Israel-Palestinian deal ready soon
5) Netanyahu: Palestinian incitement spurs Mideast conflict
6) Report: Kerry is Behind European Boycotts
7) ‘Kerry threatens to cut PA aid if no peace deal signed’
8.) US said to seek adding ‘Jewish state’ language to Arab Peace Initiative
9) Kerry asks Saudis, Jordan to support Palestinian recognition of Israel as Jewish state
10) John Kerry frustrated by Palestinians’ refusal to recognise ‘Jewish’ Israel
11) Fatah official: We demand clarity on Jerusalem
12) Netanyahu rejects inclusion of Jerusalem in Kerry’s framework deal
13) Israel rejects US proposals on Jordan Valley
14) Kerry Proposes: 80,000 Arabs to Flood Israel
15) Officials: PM won’t agree to even symbolic acceptance of Palestinian ‘right of return’
16) US framework for peace talks will have elements ‘both sides will dislike,’ says Netanyahu
17) ‘Interim Deal? It Just Means We’ll Keep Talking’
18) Ya’alon says Israel, PA working to extend talks beyond 9-month period
19) Netanyahu wants to say ‘yes’ to Kerry, but without anyone noticing
20) Netanyahu plans a national referendum on US peace framework to extend negotiations for another year
21) Bennett on peace talks: ’67 lines not up for negotiation
22) Shaked: We Won’t be in a Government that Accepts ’67 Borders’
23) Deri: Shas Not a ‘Safety Net’ For Kerry Deal
24) Deri: No to An Agreement that Hurts Judea and Samaria
25) Herzog: Opposition Will Vote With Govt. On PA Deal
26) Watch: Conference on Israeli Annexation of Judea, Samaria
27) New Institute To Research Sovereignty over Biblical Heartland
From a Biblical prophetic perspective, the reason why the God of Israel would allow these events to happen is because it will result in the end of the exile of the house of Jacob and the reunification of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Judah).
We will to be “watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem” and we will not rest until the God of Israel makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62).
Shalom in Yeshua the Messiah,
Eddie Chumney
Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int’l