Palestinians back US peace efforts despite UN move

RAMALLAH — The Palestinians expressed full backing Wednesday for US efforts to salvage crisis-hit peace talks, despite a controversial move to seek international recognition after Israel stalled a release of prisoners.

US Secretary of State John Kerry was on Wednesday scrambling to save his faltering Middle East peace efforts just hours after the Palestinians publicly reneged on a commitment to freeze such moves.

The announcement was a blow to Kerry’s frenetic efforts to resolve a dispute over Palestinian prisoners and find a way to extend the fragile talks with Israel beyond an April 29 deadline.

What triggered the crisis was Israel’s refusal to release 26 Palestinian prisoners by a weekend deadline, prompting a Palestinian move to sign 15 international treaties as a way of unilaterally furthering their claim for statehood.

Shortly afterwards, Kerry said he was cancelling an imminent trip to the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Despite the move, a senior Palestinian official insisted Ramallah was committed to the US peace efforts and hoped Kerry’s efforts would be renewed “in the coming days”.

“Kerry knows the reality. We don’t want these efforts to finish,” said Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s executive committee.

“The Palestinian leadership... wants the political process to continue. But we want a real political process, without tricks,” he told reporters in Ramallah.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al Malki echoed the support for talks, but said the membership request for the international conventions had been submitted.

“I presented the letters signed by [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas this morning to UN special envoy Robert Serry,” said Malki. “This action does not detract from the importance of negotiations. We are still committed to these talks.”

Abbas’ announcement came soon after Kerry had wrapped up a 15-hour visit to Jerusalem during which he met twice with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sources said the two had discussed an emerging proposal to resolve the prisoner issue and ensure the continuation of the peace process into 2015.

With the process hanging in the balance, the Arab League announced an emergency meeting of foreign ministers on April 9 to discuss Israel’s refusal to release prisoners.

Damage limitation 

The release of a last batch of Palestinian prisoners was part of a reciprocal arrangement which facilitated a resumption of peace talks in July 2013.

In exchange, the Palestinians had pledged to freeze all moves to seek membership in UN organisations.

With both sides breaching the agreement, Kerry was scrambling to save his flagship peace efforts, which appeared on the brink of complete collapse.

“It is completely premature tonight to draw... any final judgement about today’s events and where things are,” he said on Tuesday night.

But by Wednesday morning, it was clear he and his staff had gone into damage limitation mode as he worked the phone from Brussels.

The Palestinians have repeatedly said when the nine-month peace talks end on April 29, they would resume moves to join UN agencies to further legal claims against Israel over its settlement construction on land they want for a future state.

Abbas said the first of the 15 treatises he had signed on Tuesday was the Fourth Geneva Convention, which is of direct relevance to the settlements because it bars the transfer by an occupying power of its own civilian population into the territory that it occupies.

In Israel, there was surprise and anger over the Palestinian move.

“Is this a partner for peace?” asked a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Everything has changed now. Is there even a deal now? We don’t know.”

One hardline minister warned it would cost the Palestinians dearly.

“They will pay a heavy price,” Tourism Minster Uzi Landau told public radio, warning Israel could “apply sovereignty” over unspecified areas of the occupied West Bank.

Robbie Sabel, professor of law at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, said the Palestinians were only planning to become a party to various international treaties, in a move which was “purely symbolic”.

“The reason Israel is unhappy about it is because it reinforces the Palestinian belief that somehow the UN will deliver them a state,” he said.

“Beyond that, there’s no real substance to what they’re doing.”