BICOM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opening positions in talks held in Amman with the Palestinians last month were not significantly different from the ones presented in 2008 by former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, according to Israeli officials cited in Haaretz. At the fifth and last session of the Amman talks, Netanyahu’s representative Isaac Molho outlined Israel’s principles for a final status agreement: Borders that ensure Israel retained the greatest number of Israelis and the smallest number of Palestinians; Israel would annex the major settlement blocs, although these blocs were not defined; only after borders were defined would the more complex issue of Jerusalem be discussed; and Israel would maintain a presence in the Jordan Valley for a period of time, without including for how long or what type of presence.

There were five rounds of talks in Amman, which started after heavy international pressure was brought to bear on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas following his speech to the UN General Assembly on 23 September last year. Molho presented the principles above on 25 January, a day before the deadline on which the Palestinians threatened to call a halt to the talks if they did not receive Israel’s position on borders.

According to the Haaretz report, in a briefing to journalists yesterday, Israeli officials blamed the suspension of talks on Abbas. “For the past three weeks, Abbas has run away from negotiations, and has done the same regarding the talks in Amman,” said a top Israeli official to Haaretz. “We had the willingness to make gestures and we presented a full package, but the Palestinians simply did not want it. More and more international bodies understand that we were not the ones that thwarted the talks. You can see it from the silence on the part of the Jordanians. They did not blame Israel in any way.”