A two-state solution continues to be the “only way to achieve an enduring peace” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but current trends are “imperiling” its viability, the Middle East Quarter said in a report released Friday.
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“Israel should cease the policy of settlement construction and expansion, designating land for exclusive Israeli use, and denying Palestinian development”, it said among its 10 recommendations.
UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov briefed the UN Security Council on Thursday on the report and said it would be up to the council and the global community to use the report to decide the way forward.
Israel should stop building settlements and the Palestinians should cease incitement to violence, the Middle East diplomatic quartet said in a much-awaited report Friday aimed at reviving peace talks. The two leaders were involved in a bitter feud over last year’s US-led worldwide nuclear deal with Israel’s foe, Iran.
United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the frosty reaction to the report was not unexpected, but again appealed to Israel and the Palestinians to re-engage in an effort to save the moribund peace process.
The last round of peace talks broke down in April 2014 and violence between Israel and Palestine has surged in recent months, costing the lives of 211 Palestinians, 33 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese. The incident occurred at a security checkpoint at the site known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque and to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs.
It called on the Palestinian Authority to “act decisively” against incitement “including by clearly condemning all acts of terrorism”.
It said the secretary-general underscored the report’s finding that actors need to take steps to counter negative trends on the ground.
At least 140 Palestinians have been killed since October, the report says.
But there is no indication the US will support substantive council action, like threatening sanctions on those who fail to implement the report, which could put pressure on both sides to resume negotiations.
USA officials expected that both sides would be upset by the report, but expressed hope they will take constructive steps to improve conditions on the ground, a senior State Department official said in Washington. “When Israel froze settlements, it did not get peace”, a statement from Netanyahu’s office read.
The report refers to both sides, and specifically to the Palestinians and Israelis in relation to violence, incitement to violence, Israeli settlement construction and related policies, Palestinian unity and institution building.
The report was issued amid a flare-up of deadly attacks against Israelis by Palestinian attackers, including a shooting on a highway in the West Bank in which a father was killed and his wife and children injured and the stabbing death of 13-year-old Israeli girl in Kiryat Arba by a 17-year-old attacker.
Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat who has served as the UN’s Middle East coordinator since 2015, said both the Israelis and Palestinians will receive recommendations on steps they can take to address all three tracks – violence, settlements and Hamas rule in Gaza.
A statement released by “Aknaf Beit al-Makdis”, a Gaza based terror organization committed to “jihad against Jews, the enemy of God”, claimed responsibility for the attack which severely damaged an empty preschool.
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Israel holds the Hamas movement responsible for all rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, although other Palestinian militant groups are active in the small Palestinian enclave.
