Dubai: Reports of a new Israeli offer to the Palestinians to withdraw from "90 per cent" of the occupied West Bank in possible future direct negotiations merely hints at a deceptive new tactic, Palestinian officials and analysts said on Friday.
The offer would exclude occupied East Jerusalem, according to a report in the pan-Arab Al Hayat newspaper citing "informed sources" in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "We don't have official information on such a thing," Palestinian National Authority spokesman Gassan Khatib told Gulf News.
"Any arrangement that doesn't include freezing the colonies' expansion and doesn't have a clear basis won't be sufficient [basis for Palestine to] resume [peace] talks. It would just lead to talks for the sake of talks. It will be a vicious circle."
"I really doubt this is true," Palestinian analyst Hani Masri said. And "if it turns out to be true, it would be just a manoeuvre or game to exempt Israel from responsibility and give the Palestinian president a green light to start the [direct] negotiations."
Important questions
Palestinian and Arab experts said the public should not be fooled by Israeli talk of "percentages". They said it was important to ask what the percentages were based on. Were they based on the 1967 borders? Did they include occupied East Jerusalem or not? If so, then which areas specifically?
According to Al Hayat, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told western diplomats that the current situation did not lend itself to reaching a final peace agreement with the Palestinians, and he planned to present the Palestinian National Authority with a new interim deal, which would exempt them from withdrawing from the West Bank or occupied East Jerusalem.
According to EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, however, Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is very close to agreeing to direct talks with Israel.
Abbas "has requested a few more days for final consultations with Arab partners as well as with the Fatah and PLO executive bodies," Ashton wrote, and "should be in a position to give a definitive answer by Sunday or early next week."
Ashton said direct talks could begin "later in August."
