April 13, 2014, 7:20 p.m. EDT
Mideast peace talks resume as tensions rise
NEW
By Joshua Mitnick
TEL AVIV--Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on Sunday held a rare meeting without U.S. mediator Martin Indyk present, as they try to salvage peace talks before a deadline of April 29.
Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni called on the Palestinians to freeze their applications to the treaty organizations, but chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat declined. The Palestinians also declined Israeli requests to expel prisoners slated to be released as a goodwill gesture for the talks.
The talks came amid rising tensions over the Israeli government's approval of new settlements in the West Bank cities of Hebron and near Bethlehem, which is aggravating ties with Palestinians.
The U.S., Israel and the Palestinians are trying to defuse a crisis that erupted after Israel delayed a prisoner release and announced hundreds of new housing units in the West Bank, while the Palestinians applied for membership as a state in 15 international conventions.
Negotiation meetings continue to be held even though Israel responded to the Palestinian treaty applications by imposing economic sanctions and curtailing government relations.
Fresh expectations in Israel that the talks could yield a compromise on the prisoners prompted Economy Minister Naftali Bennett to threaten to pull out of the government.
The goal is to extend nine months of peace talks pushed by Secretary of State John Kerry beyond the April 29 expiration.
New settlement activity complicates those efforts. The Israeli army on Sunday allowed Jewish settlers to establish an enclave in a Palestinian neighborhood of Hebron. Settlers on Sunday began moving property into a four-story apartment building on a road linking the neighboring Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba to the Tomb of the Patriarchs holy site and four existing Jewish enclaves in Hebron.
Palestinians and Israeli peace activists said the move is likely to increase tension with Arab residents of the city by forcing the Israeli army to expand its footprint. The army controls around 20% of the city in order to secure tiny residential developments of several hundred Jewish settlers there.
"While some people are talking about continuation of talks, this clearly shows Israel's lack of commitment towards a two-state solution," said Mohammed Shtayyeh, a former Palestinian negotiator.
The move followed Thursday's move by the Israeli army's civil administration, in which it posted notices nationalizing 243 acres in the region west and south of Bethlehem--known to Israelis as the "Etzion bloc" of settlements-- as "government property."
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said, "This is Palestinian property. Israel is engaged in an act of grand deception and grand theft."
An Israeli defense official sought to play down the decision, calling it the culmination of a three-year survey by the army's civil administration to determine whether rural lands were privately owned or public lands.
The official added that the tracts are located in the Gush Etzion, one of several settlement regions that Israel would like to formally annex as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.
"That is, territory on which there's a consensus that it will remain in Israeli hands in any case," the official said.
An Israeli peace activist who monitors settlement expansion said the size of the land appropriation was the largest in recent memory.
"The people who declared it want to make sure that the negotiations with the Palestinians fail," said Dror Etkes, who founded the settlement-watch division of Peace Now. "This is a finger in the eye of the Palestinians in the middle of the process."
The nationalized lands include an unauthorized settler outpost, "Netiv Ha'Avot," which Israel's military said in 2007 was likely erected on privately owned Palestinian property. Palestinians who claim title to the lands nationalized by Israel have 45 days to appeal the decision, according to the military notice.
Mohammed Najib in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this article.
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