US pressing Israel to halt West Bank construction

FE Team | Published: September 30, 2010 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

A worker tends to cannabis plants at a plantation near the northern Israeli city of Safed. — Reuters Photo

JERUSALEM, Sept 29 (AP): Washington's special envoy to the Mideast is in Israel Wednesday to try and get the stalled peace process back on track and press for a halt to new settlement construction on land the Palestinians want for a future state.
Israel's own foreign minister highlighted the stiff opposition Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces within his own governing coalition to making concessions to the Palestinians.
At the United Nations Tuesday, Avigdor Lieberman spoke of a decades-long interim agreement with the Palestinians instead of the near-term statehood they demand.
In a rare move, Netanyahu distanced himself from his own foreign minister's comments. The prime minister, himself a hardliner in dealings with the Palestinians, has committed to try to frame a final peace deal within a year.
The flap complicated a diplomatic landscape already burdened by Israel's refusal to renew a 10-month moratorium on housing starts in the West Bank, which expired Sunday. Netanyahu says his pro-settlement coalition could fracture if the construction curbs are extended.
But the Palestinians say negotiations are pointless if growing settlements keep chipping away at lands they want for their future state. And they've threatened to walk away from the talks if the settlement curbs aren't reinstated.
In an attempt to break the impasse, the White House sent George Mitchell to the region Tuesday to try to prevent the collapse of peace talks, which resumed less than a month ago after a two-year breakdown.
Mitchell is to meet with Netanyahu Wednesday and with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Thursday.
"We want the Palestinians to stay in the direct negotiations and we want the Israelis to demonstrate that it is in the Palestinian interest to stay in these negotiations," US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said in Washington Tuesday.
Abbas has given the US until next week to find a compromise and will not announce whether he'll quit the talks until Arab foreign ministers met in Cairo Monday.