Netanyahu offers to resume talks with Palestinians

PanARMENIAN.Net - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed resuming peace negotiations with the Palestinians but with the initial focus on identifying those Jewish settlements that Israel would keep and be allowed to expand, an Israeli official said on Tuesday, May 26, according to Reuters.

Peace talks collapsed in April 2014 over Israeli settlement-building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Palestinians seek for a state, and after Abbas angered Israel by reaching a unity deal with the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.

Asked about Netanyahu's position, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said settlement activity had to stop altogether before peace talks resume and that all core issues of the conflict with Israel needed to be addressed simultaneously.

In a meeting in Jerusalem last week, Netanyahu told Federica Mogherini, the European Union's foreign policy chief, that some of the land Israel captured in a 1967 war would remain in its hands while other parts would be left under Palestinian control, the Israeli official said.

"Therefore negotiations should be resumed in order to define those areas in which we can build," the official said, quoting Netanyahu.

One Western diplomat familiar with what occurred at the meeting with Mogherini said Netanyahu's proposal showed some change in his position, but not enough to restart peace talks.

"Up until now, Netanyahu has refused to put any maps on the table, so in that respect it was quite substantial. He was talking about borders in one way or another, even if it was based around the acceptance of existing settlement blocs," the official said.

Another Western diplomat described Netanyahu's proposal as creating "the illusion of progress".

"Netanyahu was trying to show that he is committed to peace and ready for negotiations, but he knows the Palestinians would never agree to begin on this basis," the diplomat said.