Peres defends Abbas after Israeli foreign minister's attack

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Israel's President Shimon Peres (L) meets actor Jason Alexander at the president's residence in Jerusalem October 25, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun

JERUSALEM | Tue Oct 25, 2011 12:09pm EDT

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli President Shimon Peres came to the defense of Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday after Israel's far-right foreign minister called the Palestinian president an obstacle to peace.

"Abbas and (Palestinian) Prime Minister (Salam) Fayyad are serious leaders that want peace and are working to prevent violence and extremism in our region," said Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

"We must continue to negotiate peace with them in order to achieve full peace that will end this long conflict," he said in public remarks during a meeting with "Seinfeld" actor Jason Alexander, a member of "One Voice," an international movement promoting a two-state solution.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who heads an ultranationalist party in the governing coalition, said in a briefing to reporters on Monday that Abbas was blocking any progress toward peace.

"If there is an obstacle that could be removed it's Abu Mazen," he said, referring to Abbas and calling on him to resign.

"He threatens he will hand back the keys," Lieberman said, referring to the Western-backed Abbas's warnings in the past that he would quit unless a statehood deal could be achieved. "It's not a threat, it's a blessing."

There was no indication that Lieberman's fiery remarks reflected any change in Israeli government policy, and they elicited no response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has called on Abbas to resume negotiations, which collapsed 13 months ago in a dispute over Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank, and abandon a unilateral bid for U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state.

Lieberman's remarks drew Palestinian anger and condemnation by a spokesman for U.N. Middle East envoy Robert Serry, and from European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, on the eve of a new push by international mediators for renewed talks.

Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for Ashton, said on Tuesday Lieberman's remarks were "regrettably not helpful to create the environment of trust conducive to negotiations."

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Voice of Palestine Radio, "we consider this tantamount to a call for the physical assassination of (Abbas)."

"This is criminal incitement. We called the American administration, we sat with our friends in the Russian Federation and the European Union," Erekat said.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were due to meet separately in Jerusalem on Wednesday with representatives of the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators -- the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.

Expectations were low in Israel and the Palestinian Territories that the indirect talks could lead to a resumption of face-to-face negotiations between the two sides.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher Ilan in Jerusalem, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels and Tom Perry in Ramallah)

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Abbas to seek full UN membership

16 September 2011 Last updated at 21:32 GMT President Abbas: "We take with us all the suffering and hope of our people to achieve this objective"
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said he will apply to the UN Security Council for full UN membership of a Palestinian state.
He said full UN status was a legitimate right for the Palestinian people. The address comes before a meeting of the UN General Assembly next week.
Mr Abbas's move sets up a confrontation with Israel, which sees the initiative as an attempt to isolate it.
Washington is also opposed, saying it will use its veto.
US officials urged the two sides to return to the negotiating table whatever happened in New York.
The Palestinian leader said he wanted recognition as a state within 1967 borders.
This includes the West Bank - including East Jerusalem - and the Gaza Strip.
All of these areas were occupied by Israel in 1967.
Israel withdrew its troops from Gaza in 2005, but is still in control of its airspace and coastline.
Continue reading the main story Yolande Knell BBC News, Jerusalem
This speech ticked all the right boxes - dealing with Palestinian fears and Israeli criticisms. It also spelt out a clear strategy - the Palestinians will seek full membership of the UN via the Security Council, despite US opposition.
There have been questions over the effect any UN bid could have on the Palestine Liberation Organisation - and its ability to represent all Palestinians. Mr Abbas insisted its status would not be affected. He repeatedly mentioned refugees and the diaspora. At the same time Palestinians were told to keep matters peaceful and warned they were facing "a difficult mission… not a joy-ride."
Israeli arguments that the UN bid is "unilateral" and will prevent a return to negotiations on core issues were roundly dealt with.
President Abbas is not always a good public speaker but in this 30-minute address he appeared composed and relaxed, even making some humorous asides.
'Dead end' Mr Abbas chose the bid for full membership over the less controversial option of asking the UN General Assembly to upgrade Palestinian status from observing entity to non-member.
If statehood is rejected the Palestinian Authority could still pursue this option.
Mr Abbas said more than 126 countries had now recognised Palestine as a state, and his people had run out of patience.
"Our sincere and continuing efforts to achieve through negotiations and resolution that will put an end to occupation and emerge as an independent Palestinian state has reached an impasse, a dead end," he said.
"We are going to the United Nations to request our legitimate right, obtaining full membership for Palestine in this organisation," he added.
He said that he would seek a vote on the issue in the Security Council, a move which is likely to result in a US veto.
The BBC's Jon Donnison, in Ramallah on the West Bank, says the veto could inflame Arab opinion at a time of huge upheaval in the Middle East.
But Mr Abbas also aimed to play down expectations, our correspondent says, adding that the move would not end Israel's occupation.
He urged Palestinians to remain peaceful, saying violence would harm the Palestinian cause, and he stressed the UN move was not a substitute for negotiations.
"We are not heading there to delegitimise Israel, no one can do this, it is a state with full membership at the UN," he said. "We want to delegitimise the Israeli occupation and its measures on our territories."
Financial sanctions
Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said there would be no official Israeli response to the speech.
But earlier in the day he said the Palestinian move would damage the prospects for peace, adding that the path to peace lay through direct negotiations in Ramallah and Jerusalem and not through the UN.
Susan Rice on US opposition to the Palestinian UN bid
Israeli government ministers have threatened retaliation, including potentially damaging financial sanctions.
Israel sees the statehood initiative as an attempt to undermine its legitimacy.
Meanwhile correspondents say White House officials are still unsure what course the Palestinians would take at the UN.
"Whatever happens at the United Nations, there's going to have to be a process to get these two parties back to the table when we get beyond next week," said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, quoted by the Associated Press.
The Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, said Mr Abbas' move was unilateral and "carried great risks".
There has been an intense round of diplomacy focused both on the UN meeting next week and on trying to revive stalled peace talks.
US diplomats Dennis Ross and David Hale, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Middle East envoy Tony Blair are all in the region.
Earlier on Friday, Palestinians threw stones at Israeli security forces near the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. The Israelis fired tear gas.
There were more protests in the West Bank village of Walaje.

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Abbas to stake Palestinian claim to state at U.N.

1 of 20. A banner with an image of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas which supports his planned bid for statehood recognition at the United Nations, is seen in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud September 22, 2011, as Al-Aqsa Mosque, on the compound known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount is seen in the background.
Credit: Reuters/Baz Ratner
By Alistair Lyon
UNITED NATIONS | Fri Sep 23, 2011 3:25am EDT
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asks the United Nations Friday to recognize a state for his people, even though Israel still occupies its territory and the United States has vowed to veto the move.
In what he may see as a date with destiny, Abbas, 76, will hand U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon an application for full U.N. membership, which the Security Council must then consider.
His appeal to the council reflects a loss of faith after 20 years of failed peace talks sponsored by the United States, Israel's main ally, and alarm at relentless Israeli settlement expansion that is eating into the land Palestinians want for a state.
It also exposes Washington's dwindling influence in a region shaken by Arab uprisings and shifting alliances that have pushed Israel, for all its military muscle, deeper into isolation.
Abbas will set out his case in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will also take the podium to argue that only direct negotiations between the two sides can lead to a Palestinian state.
President Barack Obama, who told the United Nations a year ago he hoped Palestinians would have a state by now, said Wednesday he shared frustration at the lack of progress.
But he said only Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, not actions at the United Nations, could bring peace. "I am convinced that there is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades," he declared.
But the notion that more talks in the familiar format can succeed where so many have failed seems implausible.
So Abbas, a moderate politician opposed to violence, sees no alternative but recourse to the United Nations, although Israeli and U.S. politicians have threatened financial reprisals that could cripple his Palestinian Authority.
Should that happen, one Abbas aide said, the Palestinian Authority could dissolve itself, forcing the Netanyahu government to consider reassuming responsibility over all of the West Bank -- a major demographic and security liability for Israel.
"We will invite you to become the only authority from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean," the aide, veteran negotiator Saeb Erekat, told Israel Radio.
BURDEN OF HISTORY
A gulf of mistrust separates Israelis and Palestinians, who each feel their existence is at stake in a bitter struggle over borders, security, refugees and Jerusalem.
Political divisions among Palestinians, and the constraints of U.S. domestic politics, where support for Israel is solid and long-standing, further complicate any chance of bridging the gaps.
The divisions are rooted in a heavy burden of history, painfully contested narratives and recurring bloodshed.
The United Nations partitioned Palestine in 1947, but Arab states rejected that and declared war on the new state of Israel, which then captured more territory than it had been allotted under the U.N. plan and dispossessed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, who became refugees.
Two decades after Israel seized the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war, the Palestine Liberation Organization effectively reduced its demands to a state on those territories.
A 1993 agreement signed by PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin set out a plan for Palestinian self-rule, which was never fully implemented.
Israel has continued to expand settlements in the West Bank, although it dismantled them in the Gaza Strip, now ruled by Hamas Islamists who refuse to recognize the Jewish state.
Two Palestinian uprisings erupted in 1987 and 2000, but failed to end Israeli occupation or bring statehood closer.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States would continue to push for a durable, negotiated peace.
"Regardless of what happens tomorrow in the United Nations, we remain focused on the day after," she said Thursday.
Abbas, who has won new popularity at home for his determined stance, accepts that negotiations are necessary, but argues statehood will put Palestinians on a more equal footing.
Israel sees the initiative at the United Nations as a sinister attempt to shear away its own legitimacy.
Diplomats at the United Nations are already looking to limit the fallout from the Palestinian statehood application.
The Security Council could delay action on Abbas' request, giving the mediating "Quartet" -- the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations -- more time to craft a declaration that could coax the two sides back to the table.
But the Quartet, whose envoys met for several hours on Thursday, may be unable to agree on a statement that could satisfy both Israel and the Palestinians.
Another option, advanced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, would see the Palestinians go to the General Assembly, which could vote to upgrade the Palestinians from an "entity" to a "non-member state" while reviving direct peace talks.
That could allow the Palestinians to pursue Israel in war crimes tribunals, but European diplomats are seeking a tacit assurance they would not do so as long as negotiations last.
Sarkozy's plan sets an ambitious timetable for talks to begin within one month, an agreement on borders and security within six months and a final peace agreement within a year.
Israel was cool to the French proposal. "A Palestinian state should be the outcome of negotiations, which means a Palestinian state should mark the end of conflict and cessation of claims," Netanyahu's cabinet secretary, Zvi Hauser, told Israel's Army Radio.
(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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