The FINANCIAL — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on June 15 Israel’s continued settlement building was harming peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
At a news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — who called settlements “the highest hurdle” to a deal with Israel — Rice said she believed a statehood accord was still possible this year, but would require intensified efforts.
Israel said on Saturday it planned to build 1,300 new homes in the occupied West Bank in an area it considers part of Jerusalem. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the move part of “a systematic policy to destroy” the peace process.
Rice said both sides should be trying to build confidence, not undermine it.
Pointing to Israel’s settlement policy, she said: “I do believe, and the United States believes, that the actions and the announcements that are taking place are indeed having a negative effect on the atmosphere for the negotiation — and that is not what we want.”
She said construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank would not pre-determine the future borders of a Palestinian state, frontiers which Washington believes must be negotiated by the two parties.
Asked if she expected Israel to take action to rein in settlement activity, Rice said: “I don’t expect, frankly, any blinding breakthroughs.”
Rice is on her sixth trip to the region this year to try to nudge both sides toward a peace deal by the end of 2008 — a goal widely viewed as unrealistic. “We have a lot of work to do between now and then if we’re going to get it done. So I expect an intensification of our efforts,” she said. A senior Palestinian official said that as part of a push for a deal in 2008, Rice proposed holding more trilateral meetings with the chief Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. Disputes over settlements and a corruption scandal that could topple Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have undercut US efforts to reach a deal before President George W. Bush steps down in January, Israeli, Palestinian and Western officials say.
Israel insists its settlement projects are consistent with long-standing policies that do not contradict the peace efforts. Palestinians fear the enclaves will deny them a viable state.
“It’s clear to everyone that the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem will remain part of Israel in any possible final status agreement,” Olmert spokesman Mark Regev said.
“Building inside those Jewish neighborhoods in no way contradicts our commitment to move forward in the peace process,” Regev said. Israel considers all of Jerusalem — including the eastern part of the city it captured in a 1967 war and annexed in a move that did not gain international recognition — to be its “eternal and indivisible” capital.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of the state they aim to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel has repeatedly announced plans to build more homes in Jewish settlements it intends to keep in any peace deal, violating its commitments to halt all settlement activity under a 2003 US-backed “road map” peace plan. The road map also calls on the Palestinians to crack down on militants. Rice, who met earlier in the day with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, said she planned to discuss road map compliance at trilateral talks today with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
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