Israel offers settlement suspension, Palestinians reject (2nd Roundup)

Nov 25, 2009, 18:00 GMT

Jerusalem/Ramallah - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday announced a 10-month moratorium of Israeli construction in the occupied West Bank, urging Palestinians to accept the offer and renew long-stalled peace negotiations.

But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas quickly rejected the offer, with his spokesman saying the Palestinians insisted on a total freeze, including East Jerusalem.

Washington welcomed the announcement as a 'positive' step that could help move peace negotiations forward, although it noted the move fell far short of a full settlement freeze.

Abbas has made such a total freeze a precondition for resuming the talks that were broken off late last year as Israel headed into new elections, which brought the hardline Netanyahu to power.

Netanyahu said the moratorium meant Israel would build no new settlements, nor expropriate more land for the expansion of existing settlements.

Nor would he allow any new constructions to start within existing Jewish settlements for a period of 10 months - excluding 'public buildings that are essential for the continuation of a normal life.'

The construction of under 3,000 homes that had already begun within existing settlements would also be allowed to be completed.

Most importantly, Israel would not stop building in East Jerusalem - or Jewish neighbourhoods built within the city limits but on occupied land, beyond the 'green line' separating Israel from the West Bank.

'We will not stop the existing construction of homes. We will continue to build synagogues, schools and kindergartens ... Regarding Jerusalem, our sovereign capital, my position is well know. I won't put any limitation whatsoever on building in our capital,' Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem, speaking first in Hebrew, then in English.

'It falls short of a full settlement freeze but it is more than any Israeli government has done before and can help move to an agreement between the parties,' the special US envoy for the Middle East, George Mitchell, told reporters Wednesday.

Eleven ministers of Netanyanu's inner security cabinet earlier voted in favour of the move, and only one against.

Those who voted in favour included ultra-right Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, of the Israel Beiteinu party, Netanyahu's largest coalition party. Lieberman lives himself in a settlement near Jerusalem, but he said he wanted to avoid giving the Palestinians an 'pretext' to avoid peace peace negotiations.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a statement saying the move could serve as a point to restart negotiations toward a two-state solution based on 1967 borders 'with agreed swaps.'

'Today's announcement by the government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,' Clinton said.

But Nabil Abu Rudeineh, Abbas's spokesman, said in a statement from Santiago, Chile, where Abbas is on an official visit, and published on the official Wafa news agency that 'resuming negotiations should be based on total halt to settlement construction in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.'

He said 'Jerusalem is red line for the Palestinians and Arabs and we cannot accept any situation that precludes Jerusalem.'

Netanyahu earlier told the 12-member forum of senior ministers that 'under the international circumstances that have been created, this step promotes te broad national interests of Israel.

The move, he said, 'allows us to place before the world a simple truth: the government of Israel wants to enter into peace negotiations with the Palestinians, is taking practical steps to enter into negotiations and is very serious about promoting peace.'

Defence Minister Ehud Barak, of Netanyahu's most dovish coalition partner, the Labour Party, told the security cabinet he hoped 'that the leadership of the settlers in Judea and Samaria, which is a patriotic and responsible leadership, will understand the need at this time for the decision that was taken.'

But even before the Israeli inner cabinet met in Jerusalem in the mid-afternoon, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad rejected the Israeli proposal.

Fayyad said that excluding East Jerusalem from any freeze would be a 'major issue' for the Palestinians, and that a 10-month settlement construction halt would be 'difficult', since 'a moratorium is not a long-term freeze.'

Right-wing Israeli politicians, including some from Netanyahu's cabinet and parliament caucus, also rejected the freeze.

Scient Minister Daniel Hershkowitz, who head a small, three-seat nationalist party in the coalition, said a right-wing government should 'not choke the settlements, but help them.'

Danny Dayan, chairman of the West Bank Settlers Council and a Likud lawmaker, said that Netanyahu was elected on a promise to develop and promote the settlements.

Israel began settling the West Bank in 1967, soon after it captured the area from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War.

Religious and nationalist Jews regard the West Bank as part of the biblical Jewish homeland. East Jerusalem, also captured from Jordan, was incorporated into (Israeli) West Jerusalem's municipal boundaries in 1967, and formally annexed in 1980.

Some 300,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements. Israel hopes to retain the large settlements blocks,as part of any peace agreement with the Palestinians.