PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT Mahmoud Abbas has said he will not hurry his response to Israel’s refusal to extend a 10-month curb on new housing construction in West Bank settlements. Following discussions with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Mr Abbas said in Paris yesterday that he would make his decision next week after consultations with Arab and Palestinian leaderships.
Nasser al-Kidwa, a senior Fatah official, said settlement expansion could finish off the idea of the two-state solution involving the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. UN agencies and human rights groups say Israeli settlements and infrastructure take up more than 40 per cent of the West Bank, making it impossible for Palestinians to build a viable state.
Addressing Israelis, Mr Kidwa said: “It’s not a matter of choice now . . . Either you continue with the colonisation of the land and thus end the two-state solution or you stop [construction] now and negotiate in good faith . . .”
If the talks failed, he said, both sides would suffer. It would be “very messy, very difficult, very painful, very bloody for everybody, for a long time to come. But we will not be the party that actually destroyed the possibility of achieving peace on the basis of a two-state solution.”
Arab foreign ministers, due to meet in Cairo on October 4th, are likely to leave the decision to Mr Abbas. With this in mind, he again urged Israel to extend the curb for three or four months so that “fundamental issues” could be tackled in negotiations early this month.
Mr Sarkozy expressed regret that Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not extend the partial freeze and said he would invite him and Mr Abbas to a summit in October.
British foreign secretary William Hague joined the chorus of international protest to say that fresh settlement construction could “scupper the Middle East peace effort”.
In spite of such criticism, contractors went to work clearing building sites at eight locations around the West Bank, including Kiryat Arba near the contested city of Hebron. At the large urban settlement of Ariel, which juts deep into the West Bank, preparations began for the construction of 50 housing units for settlers evacuated from Gaza in 2005.
Settlers have all the paperwork completed for 600 of 2,000 units planned. Veteran observers said a surge in construction could begin next week, at the end of the Jewish Sukkot holiday.
This could make it all the more difficult for Mr Abbas to continue negotiations. One of his leading advisers Yasser Abed Rabbo said the continuation of construction could lead to a suspension both of talks and the political process. “An end to construction is needed so the peace process can progress,” he said.
Although the US announced its envoy, George Mitchell, would come to the region, no direct talks have apparently been scheduled.