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Israel and Palestinian Leaders Extend Egypt Talks
By MARK LANDLER
The International Herald Tribune
September 15, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/world/middleeast/15mideast.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast

SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt — The leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority held more than two hours of face-to-face peace talks in this Red Sea resort on Tuesday, delving into several of the core issues that divide the two sides but not breaking an impasse over Jewish settlements.

The expiration of a freeze on new construction threatens peace talks.
President Obama’s special representative, George J. Mitchell, said he was encouraged by the overall direction of the talks, but declined to say whether the two sides had made any progress on a dispute over Israel’s moratorium on settlement construction, which is scheduled to expire on Sept. 26.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ruled out extending the moratorium, while the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has threatened to walk out of the talks if Israel allows the moratorium to expire.

The busy day of diplomacy, at a sun-baked luxury hotel overlooking the sparkling waters of the Red Sea, was the second round of direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, after an opening session in Washington two weeks ago. The United States again played a central role, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mr. Mitchell taking part in the meetings.

In a sign of the complexity of the issues, Mr. Netanyahu delayed plans to return to Jerusalem after a lunch hosted by the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, so that he could hold a second meeting with Mr. Abbas. The two plan to meet again with Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday in Jerusalem.

“We continue our efforts to make progress, and we believe that we are moving in the right direction over all,” Mr. Mitchell said at a news conference. He reiterated that the Israelis and the Palestinians both believed that they could reach an agreement on all the core issues within a year.

These issues, which for decades have eluded negotiators’ attempts to solve them, include the borders of a new Palestinian state, security guarantees for Israel, the political status of Jerusalem and the rights of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

“I’m not going to attempt to identify each one that was discussed,” Mr. Mitchell said, “but several were — in a very serious, detailed and extensive discussion.”

In Israel, word spread of tentative plans by an Interior Ministry committee for discussion next month of hundreds of new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their future capital.

Although Israel’s 10-month settlement construction moratorium does not include Jerusalem, for the past six months no major building projects for Jews in East Jerusalem have been put on the agenda, in deference to political sensitivities in the United States and among the Palestinians.

The United States has long opposed Israel’s settling of Jews in East Jerusalem as a move that prejudices final status arrangements between the two sides. On Tuesday, Mr. Mitchell repeated Mr. Obama’s recent call for Israel to extend the moratorium on settlements in the West Bank, “especially given that the talks are moving in a constructive direction,” he said.

“We know that this is a politically sensitive issue in Israel,” Mr. Mitchell continued. “And we have also called on President Abbas to take steps that help encourage and facilitate this process.”

After a period in which the administration bluntly demanded that Israel freeze all settlement construction — and Israel refused — the White House is now trying to modulate its public pressure, fearing that it could stiffen Israeli resistance or put Mr. Netanyahu in an untenable position with his right-leaning coalition.

On Monday, Mrs. Clinton said she believed that the two sides could find a creative solution to the impasse, steps that would allow the Palestinians to accept less than a full extension of the moratorium or could enable Mr. Netanyahu to sell an extension to his domestic constituency.

Among the options, American officials said, would be Palestinian recognition of Israel as the Jewish homeland, something the Palestinians have so far resisted, and agreement on the borders of a future Palestinian state, which could reassure the Palestinians.

But that will not happen before the Sept. 26 deadline, obliging the two sides to hash out a more immediate compromise.

Mrs. Clinton also met the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah bin Zayed. His country recently pledged $42 million to the Palestinian Authority. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have both sharply criticized other Arab countries for failing to do enough to support the Palestinians financially, despite their public statements of support for a Palestinian state.

In a signal of the hurdles that remain, the commander of the military wing of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls Gaza, issued a harsh statement against the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, saying that Hamas remained committed to “liberating” Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, meaning both Israel itself and the West Bank it occupies. The commander, Ahmad al-Jaabari, also criticized the Palestinian Authority for negotiating “with the Zionist enemy.”

Hours after the talks ended on Tuesday, a Palestinian man was killed and another badly wounded in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops in northern Gaza. The Israeli Army said a group of Palestinian militants had fired an anti-tank missile at Israeli forces, who fired back.

Ethan Bronner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.

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