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The peace talks between Palestine and Israel are back to square one again as Israel torpedoed the US brokered talks as a response to the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation deal on Thursday.
In an interview with the BBC, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summed up their stance in the situation, saying that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas can “have peace with Israel or a pact with Hamas (but) he can’t have both”. “As long as I’m prime minister of Israel, I will never negotiate with a Palestinian government that is backed by Hamas terrorists that are calling for our liquidation”, he added.
The US administration had dragged Israel and Palestine to the table last July to negotiate for a peace deal. On Friday, US President Barack Obama, speaking in Seoul, called the Palestinian unity deal “unhelpful”, and acknowledged that there needs to be a “pause” in the Israel-Palestine talks. He however promised that he will not give up on Secretary of State John Kerry’s push for peace in the region despite the latest set of setbacks.
In March, Israel denied the release of Palestinian prisoners it had agreed to as a part of the deal to resume talks with Palestine. The Palestinians responded by submitting applications to join fifteen international treaties and the President of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah Mahmoud Abbas listed conditions to extend their talks with Israel beyond the April 29 deadline.
All parties involved have reached no legitimate results in the talk so far. The United States and Israel are hoping to extend the peace talks beyond the deadline. Abbas has said that he would agree to extend the deadline only if Israel stops all of its settlement construction in West bank and annexed East Jerusalem, releases the Palestinian prisoners it holds and starts a discussion on the future borders of a promised state of Palestine. Israel has dismissed the conditions, as US envoy Martin Indyk is going to meet with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in another attempt to find common ground.
