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Monday 13 February RNW - NEWS AND ANALYSIS FROM THE NETHERLANDS IN 10 LANGUAGES, WORLDWIDE 24/7 ON RADIO, TV AND ONLINE

Ban Ki-moon and George Mitchell in Israel

Published on 20 March 2010 - 9:41pm
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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appealed to Israel and the Palestinians to start peace negotiations.

Mr Ban, who is visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories, made his appeal during a meeting in Ramallah with the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad. He told Mr Fayyad that the Middle East Quartet firmly supports the Palestinian aspiration for an independent state.
 
On Friday the Quartet, comprising the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia, called on Israel to put an immediate end to the construction of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories.The UN Secretary General is scheduled to talk with Israeli leaders on Sunday.
 
US envoy George Mitchell is also arriving in Israel on Sunday. He postponed his visit last week after Israel announced the construction of 1600 new homes in East Jerusalem. Mr Mitchell's visit is aimed primarily at kick-starting indirect negotiations between the two sides.
 
The atmosphere has become more tense since the construction plans were made public. On Saturday a 16-year old Palestinian was shot dead during protests near Nablus.
 
 
 

Discussion

Takashi Tsushima 21 March 2010 - 4:18pm / Japan

Even though Israeli government has insisted to expand about 1500 Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem, an international community hardly justifies violence of human rights law, albeit international law justifies the violence of Israeli acts against treatment of Palestine people entrenched populations in Gaza and West Bank.

First of all, I would point out a dramatic change of Israeli security started since a former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to build up the walls along the border between Jewish residents and Palestine ones in West Bank that have taken very effective to prevent suicide bombers from intruding into Israel. In fact, a lot of tourists are able to visit to Israel for archaeological sites and many religious motivated people can pay a visit to Jesusalem without worrying from terrors.

Secondly, The U,S govenment has taken an initiative for thriving for re-establishing a peace road map to move back on a right track collaborating with Israeli government and Palestine Authority which refers to President Mahmoud Abbas, however, each internal Palestine government between Hamas-controlled govening in Gaza and Fatah and PLO factions populated in West Bank have not really comproised political skirmishes because of Western democratic sense saying, Hamas contolled in Gaza have been elected by Palestine people in 2007.

Thirdly, Even though President Mahmoud Abbas seems to make a commitment himself to international community to peace process with Israeli govermnent, but since Palestine Authority have a lack of international diplomatic recogntions by the U.S, EU and Russian and the U.N, the territory of PA has been looked to the protectorate by Israeli government and that caused Israeli government to have been inconfidence to sit together on negotiating table to some extent for economic cooperation between them. In other words, any international organizations are reluctant to get involved in Palestine Authority because PA has not effectively implemented cracking down on terroirising criminal acts against Israel. In this sense, Isralli government needs to defend themselves their own territory and its living people from such Pelestine governing controls. In return, the U.S and the E.U have tried to stop from expanding Jewish settlements to East Jerusalem. What the U,S and international community must go back to the rational reason why Israli govenment have proceeded to opposite way to look like thwarting way to the settlement expansions. It's matter of instability of PA policing security against criminals and political disparity between Hamas govement in Gaza and Palestine Authority in West Bank.

In conclusion, international community should not only blame Israel and that seems like attributing all failures to Israeli government to shrug off a substantiated peace process, but PA needs to act on realistic phasing solutions to prevent burgeoning terrorists born from West Bank soils and follow the U.S intiative peace process.

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