Kerry and Netanyahu at odds
US-Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resume Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 14, in deep confusion, senior Israeli officials report to DEBKAfile. They say that the US delegation chairing the negotiations “appears to be at sea on which issue to lead off.” There is anger in Jerusalem over the leak from US Secretary of State John Kerry’s circle of his threat that Israel would face a campaign against its legitimacy unless it gives way to pressures on West Bank settlements.
“The Secretary would be better advised to focus on the hardening of the Palestinian position,” said Israeli sources. They also pointed out that although Kerry had insisted on the talks being held in confidence, his own people were pouring out confidential data to the media. “This can only be explained,” said the Israeli sources, “by the talks having run into crisis before they begin.”
By declaring that the future Palestinian state must be cleansed of every last Jew, civilian or military, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas takes an even more extreme line than Yasser Arafat did in 2000. In the trilateral talks he held with then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, under the auspices of President Bill Clinton, the Palestinian leader accepted the right of the Israeli Defense Forces to rapidly deploy on the West Bank and Jordan Rift Valley in the event of a security crisis threatening Israel from the east.
Abbas has also backed away from the Palestinians’ original consent for Israeli security forces to be posted at the border crossings of the future Palestinian state.
According to DEBKAfile’s sources, the US Secretary of State recently proposed that security arrangements along the Jordan River and the West Bank be determined by the US and Israel without Palestinian involvement.
This position encouraged Abbas to take a tough line, say the sources, and for Israel it is a non-starter. “If Kerry does not recognize that a consensus on security must be embedded in the crux of any accord and accepted by all three parties, the negotiations must be considered to have run into insurmountable difficulties,” said the Israel source, who preferred to stay anonymous in view of the sensitivity of the issues.
