“Kerry can not come on May 30 so it has been delayed”.
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He believes the nationalist Israeli camp, by expanding its settlements and gobbling up land, is making it impossible for any arrangement that would be palatable to the Palestinian side and to him.
“Israel is ready to participate with Egypt and other Arab states in advancing both the diplomatic process and stability in the region”, Netanyahu said in a statement. “It will take place in the summer”, he told French radio. Israel, like India, claims to be willing for direct bilateral talks with Palestinians but its track record shows it never demonstrated seriousness for meaningful talks and instead persisted with actions and policies that pushed the two sides further away from engagement, like frequent bombing of Palestinians, their economic blockade and expansion of Jewish settlements in occupied Arab land.
It may just be that America doesn’t want anyone to take the peace initiative away from them, but such reluctance puts a spanner in an apparently well intentioned peace proposal.
“If we are able to – all of us together – with effort and a real will and devotion, find a solution for this issue, and find hope for the Palestinians and security for the Israelis, I am telling you a new page will be written”, he said.
French President Francois Hollande has announced that a meeting of Foreign Ministers in Paris to prepare a Middle East peace conference aimed at reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is postponed to allow U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to attend.
The Palestinians plan to submit a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but previous attempts have met with a U.S. veto.
He says the amount of animosity between Egypt and Israel that had existed prior to the conclusion of the landmark accord was no different from how the Palestinians and Israelis feel now. In his daily briefing for reporters, State Department spokesman John Kirby said no final decision has been made on Kerry’s attendance and that the Americans had informed the French that Kerry was not available on May 30.
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Also Tuesday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the failure to reach a peace agreement “will bring the Islamic State and the Al-Nusra Front to Israel and the West Bank”, Haaretz reported.
