Secretary of State John Kerry will present the outlines of a West Bank security plan in meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders this week, stepping up American involvement in hopes of reviving faltering Mideast peace efforts, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
The proposal will mark the first time Kerry has directly intervened in the talks since they began in late July. By all accounts, the negotiations have made no progress, despite an April target date for reaching a deal.
Kerry has lots riding on the outcome of the negotiations. The sides agreed to resume talks, their first substantive dialogue in five years, under heavy American pressure, and he has repeatedly shuttled to the region and held lengthy phone conversations with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort to push them forward.
Negotiators have said discussions touched on all key issues in the long-festering conflict, primarily Israeli security concerns and possible border arrangements between Israel and a future Palestine. But they say the talks have amounted to little more than restating positions.
The Palestinians seek for an independent state all of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, areas captured by Israel in 1967. They say Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries should be the basis for a future border, allowing for slight modifications through negotiated land swaps.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects a return to the 1967 lines, and has signaled he wants to retain large parts of the West Bank, where hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers live. Netanyahu also opposes any shared control over east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ hoped-for capital. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
The U.S. diplomatic officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity said Kerry and his security adviser, retired Gen. John Allen, have been working on security issues in hopes of breaking the deadlock. They believe the absence of any concrete plans so far is a main reason for the lack of progress.
The Haaretz daily said Allen would present his ideas at a meeting with Netanyahu today. After that meeting, Kerry is scheduled to head to the West Bank for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It said the American thinking is that if Israeli security concerns can be met, other issues, such as borders, will then fall into place.
One U.S. official said Allen “has been working closely on the ground with his Israeli counterparts.” The official said the Americans realize that security is “paramount” as Israel contemplates taking “calculated risks for peace.”
A U.S. official traveling with Kerry in Moldova on Wednesday said the ideas were not a “plan” that could be accepted or rejected. Instead, it was described as part of an ongoing effort to help ease Israeli security concerns. The official said many of the ideas have already been raised with the Israelis in prior meetings.
Yuval Diskin, a former director of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service, gave a boost to Kerry’s efforts, saying in a speech Wednesday that it is imperative that Israel reach a peace deal establishing a Palestinian state as soon as possible.
In a jab at Netanyahu, he said the continued occupation of millions of Palestinians presented a much bigger threat to Israeli security than the Iranian nuclear program. Netanyahu has made Iran his top priority.
“Now is the time to make decisions,” Diskin told a gathering of peace activists in Tel Aviv.
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