Poll among Palestinians: support for attacks, popularity Abbas at all time low

Barghouti for president?

Or Ismail Haniye?

According to Haaretz some two-thirds of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip support the use of knives in the current confrontations with Israelis, back the resignation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and advocate abandoning the Oslo accords with Israel, according to the latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
The pollsters noted several trends compared to the previous survey in September. They observed that "a growing majority supports return to an armed intifada; and a growing majority continues to reject the two-state solution." While 68 percent of the 1,270 adults surveyed said they supported abandoning the Oslo accords, 67 percent of those supporters believe Abbas is not serious about doing so. Researchers referred to the "Oslo generation" of youths between the ages of 18 and 22, who they say are the most supportive of an armed intifada and the least supportive of a two-state solution.
If presidential elections were held today between Isamil Haniyeh of Hamas and Abbas, Haniyeh would win 51-41 percent. That showing is an improvement for Haniyeh, who led Abbas 49-44 in the previous poll. The only Fatah figure who could beat Haniyeh is Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his role in the murder of Israelis during the second intifada.

Security Council rejects resolution on Palestine

The Security  Council in seesion. (Photo AFP)

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday rejected a Palestinian resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and the establishment of a Palestinian state by late 2017.The resolution called for negotiations to be based on the borders that existed before Israel in 1967 captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. It also called for a peace deal within 12 months.
Even if the draft had received the minimum nine votes in favor, it would have been defeated by Washington's vote against it. The United States is one of the five veto-wielding permanent members.
There were eight votes in favor, including France, Russia and China, two against and five abstentions, among them Britain. Australia joined the United States in voting against the measure.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power defended Washington's position against the draft in a speech to the 15-nation council by saying it was not a vote against peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
"The United States every day searches for new ways to take constructive steps to support the parties in making progress toward achieving a negotiated settlement," she said. "The Security Council resolution put before us today is not one of those constructive steps."

Atmosphere in Israeli Palestinian 'peace negotiations' turns into hostility

Israel began imposing a number of sanctions on the Palestinian Authority Thursday in response to a formal request by PA President Mahmoud Abbas to join 15 international conventions.In a tense meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who represented Israel in the meeting, stated that the fourth prisoner release will not go forward until the PA rescinds its request to join the United Nations bodies.

Livni and Erakat at the start of the peace negotiations in 2013 (Photo EPA)

A senior Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon had on Wednesday instructed Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, coordinator of government activities in the territories, to prepare a list of possible punitive measures against the Palestinians in the West Bank. One of the proposals accepted was the suspension of an Israeli permit allowing the Palestinian wireless provider Wataniya, which operates in the West Bank, to bring equipment into the Gaza Strip for the company's planned mobile communications infrastructure there.

Arab Ligue behind Abbas' refusal to recognize Israel as Jewish state

Closing session of the Arab suimmit in Kuwait. (AP) 

Arab leaders unanimously endorsed a Palestinian refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state at their annual summit on Wednesday. After two days of talks in Kuwait, the Arab League was united in its rejection of Israeli demands. The final communique, at the other hand, made no mention of the divisions between Arabian Gulf countries and Qatar. Neither did it fulfil the Syrian opposition’s request for sophisticated weaponry.
The statement at the end of a two-day summit backed the refusal of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas for his refusal to go along with the demand of Israeli prim minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “We express our absolute and decisive rejection to recognising Israel as a Jewish state,” the final communique said. Also it stated that the Arab leaders ''hold Israel entirely responsible for the lack of progress in the peace process and continuing tension in the Middle East”.

Netanyahu wants to retain a fourth settlement bloc in negotiations with Abbas

 

Construction in Beit El in February 2013 (Activestills.org). 

According to a report Thursday on Army Radio, Netanyahu has been seeking to define a fourth bloc of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in the vicinity of Beit El, that Israel would retain in any future agreement with the Palestinians.

The report, which cited an unnamed senior Israeli official involved in the negotiations, harked back to previous reports that the Israeli negotiating team has brought up the option of renting or purchasing land from the Palestinian Authority. The older reports did not specify which swaths of land Israel would seek to retain.

The Prime Minister’s Office declined The Times of Israel’s request for comment.

Located near the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, the Beit El bloc joins three other West Bank areas — the Gush Etzion, Ma’aleh Adumim and Ariel blocs — over which Israel wishes to retain control, even after the signing of a peace agreement. In peace proposals that have been under discussion in the past, , it was proposed that Israel swaps land of an equal proportion to compensate the Palestinians for these territories.

The three blocs, together with the Beit El area, constitute a combined 13 percent of the West Bank.

Netanyahu wants to annex the four blocs but, according to the Israeli source, at this stage opposes compensating the Palestinians with a land swap of equal size and quality. The source added that the Palestinians had rejected the idea that Israel buys or leases some of the lands on which the settlement blocs rest. 

Israel announces plans for almost 1.900 new housing units in occupied territory

 
Part of the settlement of Efrat, in the background the Palestinian village of Khirbet Abdullah Ibrahim (Reuters)  

Israel announced plans on Friday to build almost 1,900 new settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, settlement watchdog Peace Now said. The housing ministry announced the plans for 1,076 units in annexed East Jerusalem and 801 in the occupied West Bank, Peace Now spokesman Lior Amihai told AFP. Together the plans amount to 1877 new units. 
Last Monday Israel already announced plans for the construction of 272 new housing units in occupied territory. All in all this come down to 2149 units.
The paper Haaretz precises that tenders were released for the construction of 600 housing units in the settlement of Ramat Shlomo, a satellite of East-Jerusalem. In addition, also tenders were published for the construction of 532 units in other parts of East Jerusalem: 182 units in Pisgat Ze'ev, 294 in Ramot and 56 in Neve Yaakov. These last plots were marketed in the past but found no buyers at the time. They were now put back out on the market.
As for the West Bank the plans consisted of 227 housing units in Efrat, 78 in Alfei Menashe, 86 in Karnei Shomron, 40 in Ariel, 75 in Adam, 24 in Beitar Illit, 102 in Immanuel and 169 in Elkana.

Just before 'peace talks' Israel announces for 3rd time in a week building plans in occupied territory

Israel's Interior Ministry gave final approval on Monday to a plan to build 942 new apartments in Gilo, a settlement neighborhood beyond the Green Line in southern Jerusalem, just one day before Palestinian leadership is slated to make a final decision on whether to attend Wednesday’s scheduled negotiating session.
It was the third time in a week just before the restart of the peace negotiations that Israel made public large new building plans in occupied territory. The timing, this shortly before the restart of the negotiations with the Palestinians, cannot be a coincidence, one is led to think. On Sunday the Israeli  Housing Ministry announced plans to publish tenders for 394 housing units in the West Bank settlements of  Ariël, Beitar Illit and Efrat, plus 793 in East Jerusalem, including an additional 400 in Gilo. Last  Thursday the military administration of the West Bank gave the green light for almost 1.100 new houses in several settlements, including a settlement 'outpost', Nahlei Tal, that thereby de facto was 'legalized'.   . 
The last announcement is bound to put the peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israel, that are to begin on Wednesday in Jerusalem, further in jeopardy. On Monday Palestinian President Abbas consulted with senior Palestinian Authority officials on how to respond to the announcement Israel made on Sunday, issuing new tenders for construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Haaretz reports that Palestinian sources said Abbas also discussed the issue with Martin Indyk, America’s special envoy for the talks, as well as other Western diplomats, including German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, with whom he met in Ramallah. A senior Palestinian official said the dominant view among the Palestinian leadership is that there’s no place for resuming negotiations with Israel in light of the continued construction in the settlements. Abbas, however, on Monday seemed still determined to go on with the talks.

The plan approved by the Interior Ministry on Monday, known as Gilo – Southern Slopes, is one of the largest building plans Jerusalem has seen recently. It won final approval from the regional planning and building committee in December, but the developers then sought to make several changes in the plan. About a month ago, ministry planning officials approved the revised plan, and on Monday, the ministry finally signed off on it and allowed it to be published.According to Haaretz it pushes the boundary of the city (which was illegally fixed by Israel in 1968) further south, towards the Palestinians community of Beit Jala.  
Sources within the regional planning committee said the long lapse between the panel’s approval of the plan in December and the ministry’s final approval on Monday was due to pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office, which sought to delay the plan for fear of diplomatic pressure on Israel.

 

Kerry does not give up yet

John Kerry has not yet given up hope that after three years he can start a new round of peace talk between Israel and the Palestinians. After the Palestinians on Thursday voted down the formula for a restart (see the details in the post below) the  Secretary of State stubbornly travelled to Ramallah and spoke yet another time with the Palestinian president Abbas. No details of this talk were given. Burt later on Kerry gave a press conference at the Queen Alia airport of Amman, where he announced that the heads of the negotiation teams of Israel and the Palestinians - Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat - will travel to Washington next week in order to hold preliminary talks and discuss further details on the negotiations.Kerry said that an agreement about a basis for resuming direct final status negotiations had been reached. He added, however,  that details still had to be worked out, without giving details.
Reuters quoted  Wasel Abu Youssef, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, who said that Kerry's "announcement did not mean the return to negotiations. It meant efforts would continue to secure the achievement of Palestinian demands ... Israel must recognize the 1967 borders."

Kerry's attempts to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks reach dead end

 
The attempts of the American Secretary of State John Kerry to restart talks between Israel and the Palestinians have reached a dead end. Palestinian politicians on Thursday voted refused to endorse a Kerry's blueprint for resumed talks.  
According to the Israeli paper Haaretz Kerry was originally expected to announce the renewal of the talks on Friday. His formula was that he would announce that the negotiations would be based on the 1967 border lines, with land swaps – taking into account the current reality in the West Bank, i.e. the major settlement blocs.Also he was expected to say that the goal of the negotiations will be to reach the reality of "two states for two people" – Palestine as a Palestinian state and Israel as a Jewish state.These announcements were meant to address the wishes of both parties. The 1967 line referred to a Palestinian demand. Mentioning the 'Jewish state' took into account the Israeli demand that the Palestinians would not only recognize Israel, but on top of that the fact that Israel was 'a Jewish state'.
The  Palestinian refusal to endorse Kerry;'s formula however meant that there will be no announcement of a breakthrough during this visit of the American minister. The US State Department acknowledged this. "There are currently no plans for an announcement on the resumption of negotiations," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
The Palestinian refusal came during a meeting in Ramallah where President Mahmoud Abbas presented Kerry's proposals. During the meeting the Revolutionary Council of Abbas's own Fatah movement demanded changes, but according to Palestinian MP Mustafa Barghouti also most other factions of the PLO rejected Kerry's proposal. The reasons, was, as was later confirmed by Amin Maqboul, the secretary general of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, that Israel refused to accept the 1967 borders as a basis for negotiations. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had said so explicitly that same Thursday afternoon after press agency Reuters erroneously had reported that Israel had agreed to accept the 1967 as a base for the talks.
Kerry on Friday met in Amman with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat before he returned to the US. Palestinian sources said that Erakat would brief him about a Palestinian demand that Israel had as yet to accept his formula and had to give the assurance in writing. Meanwhile Haartez reported that Naftali Bennett, leader of the Bayit Hayehudi partner, a coalition partner in Netanyahu's government, threatened to leave the coalition if Israel would agree to accept the 1967 lines as a basis for negotiations. According to Haaretz some other ministers of Netanyahu's cabinet voiced similar opinions.  
 

Morsi haunted by remarks about Jews he made in 2010

It seems that the Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi has a new problem now that a video has surfaced of remarks he made in 2010, before he was elected president. In the video he said that the negotiations of the Palestinians with Israel have been a waste of time and will lead nowhere (not a baseless remark as far as I am concerned), but he also called us Jews bloodsuckers and descendants of apes and pigs. The U.S. White House and State Department asked for a clarification. AP reported:
The Obama administration on Tuesday gave a blistering review of remarks that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi made almost three years ago about Jews and called for him to repudiate what it called unacceptable rhetoric.
In blunt comments, the White House and State Department said Morsi's statements were "deeply offensive" and ran counter to the goal of peace in the region. The State Department, noting that a senior congressional delegation is now visiting Egypt, said the remarks complicated efforts to provide economic and military aid to Egypt.
"We believe that President Morsi should make clear that he respects people of all faiths and that this type of rhetoric is unacceptable in a democratic Egypt," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
Morsi was a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood in 2010 when, according to video broadcast last week on Egyptian television he asked Egyptians to "nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred." Months later, in a television interview, Morsi referred to Zionists as bloodsuckers who attack Palestinians, describing Zionists as "the descendants of apes and pigs."
"We completely reject these statements as we do any language that espouses religious hatred," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters. "This kind of rhetoric has been used in this region for far too long. It's counter to the goals of peace."
A group of senators, including Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Christopher Coons, D-Del., is currently in Cairo. Nuland said she expected they would make their views known to Egypt's leadership.
For once I'm happy with the U.S. reaction. Morsi - everyone in fact - should know that comments like he made testify of an 8unacceptable and  backward way of thinking (which, by the way, is not common to all  Egyptian Muslim Brothers, nor only to be found in Egypt - unfortunately). 

PS.  I'm not a fan of MEMRI, the agency that unearthed this video. Oh, no. They are an Israeli led organisation whose main job it is to publish as many specimens of  the Jew-hating (or West hating) nature of islamic peoples as possible, so that we understand what a hateful bunch they are. They pose as an unbiased agency, but at the same time zealously scan the most obscure papers and broadcasts in the hope of finding lots of offensive material what they then can present as truly representative of the Islamic world. But as biased as MEMRI is, apperently they sometimes dig up something that really merits to be made known...

Israeli forces evacuate Palestinian 'settlement' Bab al-Shams at the orders of Bibi Netayahu

 This was Bab al-Shams on Saturday night.

The residents of the Palestinian outpost Bab al-Shams in area E1 were evicted early Sunday morning, but their tents were left standing, in line with a temporary injunction of Israel's Supreme Court. The Palestinians received an eviction order Friday, immediately after the the 'settlement' had been built up. But - in a gesture that had been copied from the Jewish settlers - they petitioned the Supreme Court against the eviction. 
The judge gave a injunction in which he barred the eviction for six days in order to give the plaintiffs time to prove that they own the land, which belonged to one of the Arab villages that Israel included in the Greater Jerusalem area it created after 1967. 
Prime Minister Netanyahu, however, did not want to permit the village to stay there that long. His office said in a statement on Saturday that the government was petitioning the court to retract its ruling on the outpost, and had instructed security forces to block off roads leading to the rocky desert terrain. As a consequence the court granted the state the right to evict the Palestinians, but not to remove the tents, that can stay till the end of the six day period. And a couple of hours later, at 2.30 a.m., Israeli police and border guard officers entered the compound and told a crowd of around 100 to leave the tents that were erected a day earlier. Those protesters who refused to leave were carried down the hill by Israeli officers and detained, but were not jailed. Israeli police vans took them to the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The Bab al-Shams settlement (the name was taken from a novel by Lebanese writer Elias Khoury which is about Palestinian refugees in Lebanon) was a attempt by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, the committee that among other things coordinates the struggle against the construction of the Wall, to give a new impulse to the resistance against Israel's settlement activities. The tent village was set up in the area that Israel calls E1, between Jerusalem and the big settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. After the recent decision of the General Assembly of the United Nations to grant the status of observer to the State of Palestinian state, Israel decided to start building in this area, a move it postponed for several years due to objections of the US ad Europe among others, as it will effectively cut the West Bank in two.
 
The Bab al-Shams adventure was a gesture of the non-violent popular Palestinian struggle of a kind that makes one hopeful, as it is a splendid way to demonstrate the discrepancy between perceived Jewish rights ad the total absence of Palestinian ones. Nothing shows more clearly that settlement of Palestinian lands is only permissible for Jews. Netanyahu's quick response makes clear - if anything - that there is nothing that the present Israeli government is more afraid of than Palestinians who claim their rights in a non-violent way.          

'Israel agrees to resettle Palestinians from Syria only if they relinquish their Right of Return'

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has rejected a conditional Israeli offer to let Palestinian refugees from Syria resettle in the West Bank and Gaza, AP reports.
Abbas asked U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon last month to seek Israeli permission to bring Palestinians caught in Syria's civil war to the Palestinian territories. The request came after fighting between Syrian troops and rebel fighters  in Yarmouk, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. About half of the camp's 150,000 residents have fled, according to a U.N. aid agency.

Abbas told a group of Egyptian journalists in Cairo late Wednesday that Ban contacted Israel on his behalf. and was told that Israel "agreed to the return of those refugees to Gaza and the West Bank, but on condition that each refugee ... sign a statement that he doesn't have the right of return (to Israel)." "So we rejected that and said it's better they die in Syria than give up their right of return," Abbas said. Some of his comments were published Thursday by the Palestinian news website Sama.

The Israeli condition linked to the resettlement offer made it impossible for Abbas to accept, said Ahmed Hanoun, an official in the refugee department of the Palestine Liberation Organization. "I think the Israelis were not serious about this offer," said Hanoun. "If they were, they would have endorsed the return of these people who live in misery, and not to blackmail them to relinquish their legal rights."

Officials in Israel's Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister's Office declined comment Thursday.

Israel will press on with plans for 6.000 more homes in E-Jerusalem

 Givat Hamatos (vioklet dot), one of the areas that will be developed according to the plans, will close the ring around East-Jerusalem as it is located between the settlements of Gilo (blue, left of Givat Hamatos) and Har Homa (also blue at the other side). It will block the opening of the Arab parts of the city towards Bethlehem. (ARIJ)  

(Reuters) - Israeli officials said they would press on with plans this week to build 6,000 homes for settlers on land claimed by Palestinians, defying criticism from Western powers who fear the move will hit already faint hopes for a peace accord.
Stung by the de facto recognition of Palestinian sovereignty in a U.N. General Assembly vote last month, Israel announced it would expand settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
An Israeli interior ministry planning committee on Monday gave preliminary approval for 1,500 new homes in the Ramat Shlomo settlement.
The panel will now start discussing plans for another 4,500 homes in two other settlements, Givat Hamatos and Gilo, in back-to-back sessions that could run into next week, ministry spokesman Efrat Orbach said on Tuesday.
Israel counts the three settlements as part of its Jerusalem municipality though they are on West Bank land seized in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel earlier announced that it will build 3.000 new appartments on the West Bank, for a large part in the area called E1 between Jerusalem and the settlement Ma'ale Adumim. The E1 plan will effectively cut the West Bank in two and virtually insulate it from Bethlehem, Ramallah and the rest of the West Bank.

Givat Hamatos now, no more than a few mobile homes.

Israel stops 100 'Welcome to Palestine' activists who wanted to go to Bethlehem

The 'Welcome to Palestine' activists held a demonstration in Amman. (Reuters) 

More than a hundred activists from all over the world have been stopped Sunday evening by Israeli border guards when coming  from Jordan to the border crossing at the Allenby Bridge. The activists of the group 'Welcome to Palestine', were on their way to Bethlehem at the invitation of the Palestinian governor of Bethlehem and of civil society organizations there. They were carrying notebooks and school equipment for Palestinian pupils about to begin their school year.
The Israeli-controlled area of the Allenby Bridge was declared "a closed military zone" ad journalists were told to leave. The activists themselves were ot eve allowed to get off their busses.
"They collected our passports,' said Olivia Zemor of Paris, '' and a few minutes later returned them with each and every passport stamped 'Entry denied'.
It is the second time in a month that Israel denies access of visitors who have been invited by the Palestinian Authority. On 5 August Israel denied access to the Foreign ministers of Algeria, Bangladesh, Cuba, Indonesia, and Malaysia, who are members of the 13 country strong Palestine Committee of the Non Aligned Movement. The Israeli attitude shows that the Palestine Authority under the occupation has not even the authority to invite its own guests. 

Swiss institute will examine remains of Yasser Arafat

 

Arafat leaving to France for treatment. He died shortly after that.


The radiological institute of the medical centre of the university of the Vaux in Lausanne (CHUV) is going to examine the remains of Yasser Arafat, a spokesman for the centre has confirmed after Arafat's widow, Suha has given her approval. The centre now awaits a written statement from Suha Arafat's lawyer a then plans to send a mission to Ramallah at the beginning of next month.
This first mission is to meet the Palestinian leadership and explore the possibilities at Arafat's place of burial. After that a second mission will be planned in order to look for traces of the highly radioactive and toxic  polonium in Arafat's remains. The centre earlier found abnormal concentrations of polonium when it examined some of Arafat's clothes and belongings.  
"Time is short, we can say that it is a matter of weeks, not months, since the traceability of polonium halved every 138 days," CHUV spokesman Darcy Christen said. Since the unexplained death of the Palestinian leader on November 11, 2004 more than twenty cycles have passed.

Abbas get support of Arab League for the dusted off idea of an international conference

 Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas on Sunday got the support of the Arab League for the old idea of an international peace conference for the Middle East. Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday supported his request and stressed in a statement "the importance of holding an international peace conference on the Palestinian issue." That meeting would seek "an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories and to reach a comprehensive solution to the issues of borders, security, Jerusalem and refugees based on the Arab peace initiative." 

Secretary general Al-Arabi and Abbas.

The last international conference took place in Madrid in 1991 and was convened at the request of  James Baker III, the Secretary of State under Bush sr. It led to talks in sub-committees that weren´t very successful and were eventually overtaken by the secret talks in Oslo that resulted in the Oslo-Agreements between Israel and the PLO.

Before the League took its decision, Abbas told the Arab League's Follow-Up Committee, which tracks Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, that he will not resume peace talks with Israel before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will agree to a building freeze in the Israeli settlements including Jerusalem, as well to the demand to accept Israel's pre-1967 war frontier as the basis for a border with a future Palestinian state. Abbas said he is sending a letter to Netanyahu with these demands. In case of a negative response, Abbas said he will resume the campaign for recognition of a state of Palestine by the U.N.

Abbas also warned that the continued deadlock could have dire consequences for the Palestinian Authority. "The current situation cannot continue as it is, that of an Authority without power," he said.

Abbas is under pressure, particularly  from the so called Quartet (the USA, UN, EU and Russia) , to resume low-level border talks that began last month. His request for support for the dusted off idea of an international conference is meant to give him backing in his refusal to give in.

The League statement also called on its members to contribute financially to support the Palestinian Authority with $100 million a month. The statement said the funds were needed "in light of the financial strain on the Palestinian leadership and Palestinian people, with Israel not transferring the rightful money of the Palestinian Authority."

Hamas and other Palestinian factions 'on the way' to join the PLO

Palestinian factions, including Hamas, are "on the path joining" the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said Thursday following unity talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas."This is a new departure on the path to joining the PLO of all Palestinian movements", Meshaal said following the talks in the Egyptian capital.
The Egyptian intelligence chief Murad Muwafi and Palestinian independents also took part in the talks. 
Independent MP Mustafa Barghouti (The Palestinian National Initiative, PNI) said the participation of unaffiliated delegates such as himself and businessman Munib al-Masri alongside representatives of Hamas and Islamic Jihad was "a historic event. It is the first time there is a unified leadership for all political and intellectual streams," he told AFP.
Thursday's meeting of the so-called provisional leadership, which was chaired by Abbas, included the leaders of all the Palestinian factions and members of the PLO Executive Committee.`It was the first time the provisional leadership body had met since it was formed in 2005 with the aim of providing a forum for debating reform of the PLO and allowing for the participation of factions such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
This meeting was "the first concrete application of the Cairo agreement, of the reconciliation and of the partnership between all the political forces," Fatah delegation head Azzam al-Ahmed told AFP earlier on Thursday. The aim of the three-day meeting was to "focus on the restructuring of the PLO leadership and of the PNC," he said, referring to the PLO's parliament-in-exile which has more than 650 members on its books but which has not met in full session for 15 years. He said the provisional leadership body would meet again in Cairo on February 2.
Earlier Thursday, Abbas signed off on the creation of a separate nine-member panel to chart a path forward for Palestinian presidential and legislative elections. Hamas said in a statement that the groups had decided to create an electoral commission, including members of every Palestinian faction, tasked with managing elections within the PLO. The commison wil be led by the speaker of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), Selim Zaanoun, and will meet in Jordan's capital next month. "A law concerning elections to the PLO was given to the participants for them to study and each movement is to give its response for January 15 so that it can be discusssed at the first meeting of the commission", the statement added.

Bombshell which might be the death blow for what is left of 'peace process'

Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat (picture) offered Israel "the biggest Yerushaliyam [Jerusalem] in history," documents leaked to the Qatar-based TV network Al-Jazeera reveal.
Al-Jazeera and the newsdpaper The Guardian are releasing 1,676 documents including minutes, emails, reports and maps related to ten years (2001-2010) of  negotiations between Israel and the PLO, the largest leak in the history of the conflict, over a four-day period, in a way that resembles in many aspects the Wikileaks process.
Al Jazeera on Sunday revealed that while publicly condemning settlements, in private Erekat offered to make all of them (except one, Har Homa - Jebel Abu Gheneim) in Jerusalem permanent , giving up the Palestinian claim to much of the occupied city.
"This is the first time in Palestinian-Israeli history in which such a suggestion is officially made," Erakat said of the proposal that was never publicly revealed. Israel rejected the offer.
First Palestinian reactions to this 'Palestine papers' leak were one of shock, horror and anger. Israeli criticws of the government in Jerusalem said that it showed that the Israeli's had 'a partner for peace' after all but never  grabbed the opportunities offered to them, which confirmed presumptions that Israel was not serious about achieving a deal. Some people also assumed that the leaks will have consequences for the Palestinian Authority, or at least its chief negotiator Saeb Erakat, and maybe also for what with a euphemism is still called 'the peace process'. 

The Guardian offers a link to the papers (here).
(More about this in the next few days).

Americans shift back to indirect peace talks

Video of the speech of Hillary Clinton at the Saban Centre on Friday. She arrives at the more interesting points at about 10' into her talk.

The Americans go on as if  not much has changed. After the approach failed to get the Israelis and Palestinians at the table for direct talks, due to Israeli refusal to extend the building freeze in the settlements,  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Friday that Washington would fall back on the indirect approach, whereby the U.S., will have talks with both parties seprartely from each other.  During those talks the United States would push to resolve core issues of the conflict, she said, including borders, security, the  future of Jerusalem, and the issue of the Palestinian refugees. "Like many of you, I am frustrated that we have not gotten farther, faster," Ms Clinton said in a speech at the Saban Forum, a Middle East policy seminar sponsored by the Brookings Institution think tank.
Stressing that a negotiated solution remained the only way forward, she said the US would resume the role of broker, opening talks with both parties on vital issues. "We will push the parties to lay out their positions on the core issues without delay, in good faith, and with real specificity," she said.
Ms Clinton's speech was the first Middle East policy address after the US on Tuesday announced it had abandoned  its efforts to persuade Israel to halt construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Ms Clinton had talks with Israeli and Palestinian envoys before her speech. Special U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell on Monday went  to the region for talks with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday hailed the U.S. decision to drop efforts to achieve a building freeze in Jewish settlements. "I welcome this American decision. It is good for Israel. It is good for peace," he told an economic forum."To reach peace, we have to discuss the issues that are truly delaying peace ... I welcome the fact that we will now begin discussing these issues and try to narrow gaps," Netanyahu said.
Palestinian officials have voiced concern that Israel would try to undermine any indirect negotiations by avoiding discussion of future borders of a state they intend to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Netanyahu Netanyahu's speech was proof that their concern was not unfounded, as the prime minister cited issues such as his demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, security arrangements and the future of Palestinian refugees.
One day earlier, on Sunday, Netanyahu had as well made it clear that he is against a division of Jerusalem. His office communicated that  that comments by the country's defence minister, Ehud Barak, in favour of dividing Jerusalem between Israelis and Arabs were not the policy of the Israeli government. They represent the long-held views of the defence minister but do not represent the views of the government as a whole," his spokesman said. Addressing the Saban Center for Middle East policy in Washington on Friday, Barak, a former prime minister from the Israeli Labour Party, had said Jerusalem's Jewish neighbourhoods should remain part of Israel, but Arab sectors should come under the sovereignty of an independent Palestinian state.
The comments were in line with the "Clinton parameters" - proposals for the city's future outlined by Bill Clinton, the former US president, in 2000, after the failure of the Camp David peace summit, which would see Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state.

Palestinian negotiators and analysts said Washington's failure to win a new settlement freeze was a sign of Israeli intransigence and US weakness, and that they held out little hope for the future of negotiations.
Speaking to Al-Hayat newspaper, Yasser Abed Rabbo, an aide to the Palestinian president, said it made no sense to resume so-called proximity talks, and suggested that the Palestinians were considering abandoning negotiations altogether in favor of a unilateral declaration of statehood.
"The old way did not achieve any results and we will not accept a return to it," he said.
"We want to know, will the US side return to the old approach [of proximity talks or direct negotiations], or will they recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital?"

The Elders, agroup of former statesmen and women, founded by Nelson Mandela and including people like Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Mary Robinson and Kofi Annan, gav a declaration unde the title: We need peace in the Middle East, not just process. According to the Elders what is needed is:

1. Universal human rights and respect for international humanitarian law must apply equally to all.
2. The occupation must end, and the aim of negotiations should be to define the boundaries of a future Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, including its capital in East Jerusalem. Such an accord could entail, if agreed, a one-to-one land swap to allow for minor adjustments. Initial negotiations should also aim at security arrangements in which both Israelis and Palestinians have confidence.
3. The remaining final status issues can be addressed more effectively once there is an agreement on borders and security.
4. Israeli settlements are illegal and all settlement activity must halt throughout the occupied Palestinian territory including in East Jerusalem.
5. Israel must lift its illegal and inhumane blockade of Gaza and stop the demolition and seizure of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
6. Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza must end all human rights violations against political critics and rivals.
7. Israel's right to exist must not be denied. Incitement and calls for the destruction of Israel must not be tolerated.
8. The Arab Peace Initiative must serve as the basis for normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab world.

New building plans for East-Jerusalem (and Ariel) announced as Netanyahu visits US

 Har Homa.

The United States said it was "deeply disappointed" on Monday by Israel's announcement of a plan to build over 1,000 new Jewish homes beyond the Green Line in Jerusalem.
"We were deeply disappointed by the announcement of advance planning for new housing units in sensitive areas of East Jerusalem. It is counter-productive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties," said U.S. State Department Spokesman Philip J. Crowley.  

 According to Hagit Ofran, who monitors settlement activity for the organisation Peace Now, it is in fact three plans which were deposited for public review in the last few days:

1. City Plan No. 10310 – “Har Homa C” – a plan to expand dramatically the East Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa with 983 new housing units.
2. City Plan No. 12825 – a plan for an addition of 42 housing units in the already built part of Har Homa.
3. City Plan No. 4280b – a plan to build 320 housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Ramot.

Ofran calls it a huge provocation by Netanyahu, that the plans are being submitted right now ´at a very sensitive time in the negotiation process. The timing of this depositing is not accidental. The plan in Har Homa, had been approved for depositing in July, 2008 and suddenly now it is being deposited. It seems to be a calculated attempt by Netanyahu to torpedo peace talks and also avoid blame, by forcing the Palestinians to be the ones to walk away from the negotiation table. Har Homa has become a symbol of Netanyahu’s refusal of peace. In 1998 as Prime Minister he established the settlement, which became a major cause for the failure of the Oslo Process.

Ofran adds some remarks about the planning process. It works as follows:  The planning authorities publish every plan for public review. The public is granted 60 days to express objections to the plan, after which the Regional Planning Committee would convene to discuss the objections and to approve the plan accordingly. After the final approval of the plan, there is another long procedure before the construction can start. In cases of big projects initiated by the Ministry of Housing, such as the case of Har Homa, there is a need for a public tender, offering potential contractors the opportunity to bid for the right to build. After winning the bid, the contractors apply for a construction permit from the municipality, a procedure that might take a few months to a year, and only then can they start to construction.
The depositing is one major step in promoting the plans, but it is going to take a few years until the bulldozers can start the construction.

 So really the fact that the submission of the plans coincides with Netanyahu´s visit to the US, can only be interpreted as a provocation. What Haaretz wrote on Monday, that they might be an embarrasment to the prime minister, does not make sense. It is simply unthinkable that the planning has not been coordinated with him beforehand.

Update Haaretz writes on Tuesday that also a plan for 800 new homes in the settlement Ariel has been approved. According to Haaretz execution of this plan can start as soon as the planning and construction committee of Ariel will give its approval, which it no doubt will do.