A meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the US Middle East envoy was called off because of disagreements over settlement growth, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.
Officials close to Netanyahu said he had called off the meeting and denied an Israeli newspaper report that Washington had cancelled it over Israel’s refusal to halt “natural growth” in the settlements.
“The decision to cancel the meeting … was taken by the prime minister. We must be sure before such a meeting that professional work has been done on a series of issues,” a senior Israeli official told AFP.
“There will be a meeting as soon as this work is done.”
The mass-selling Yediot Aharonot had earlier quoted an unnamed Israeli official as saying Washington issued a “stern” message to Netanyahu to halt all settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land.
“Once you’ve finished the homework we gave you on stopping construction in the settlements, let us know. Until then, there’s no point in having (envoy George) Mitchell fly to Paris to meet you,” the paper quoted the official as saying.
The meeting with Mitchell was to take place in Paris during Netanyahu’s first visit to Europe since taking office earlier this year at the head of a hawkish right-wing government.
An Israeli official said Mitchell would instead meet Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Monday in Washington.
In recent weeks Washington has ramped up pressure on Netanyahu’s government to halt all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank as part of efforts to relaunch the Middle East peace process.
The Palestinians have said they will not meet Netanyahu until Israel halts all settlement activity. The presence of some 280,000 Israelis in more than 100 settlements across the territory has been a major obstacle to peace efforts.
Netanyahu has vowed not to build new settlements, but said he would allow for “natural growth” within existing settlements, including the main settlement blocs Israel expects to keep in any future peace deal.
But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in May that President Barack Obama had made it clear during Netanyahu’s visit to Washington that he wants no “natural growth exceptions” to his call for a settlement freeze.
The international community considers all settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 Six Day war, to be illegal.
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Ron Paul will never be elected as the President of the United States because he is a conservative Libertarian not a Republican. It is not fair to the true Republican candidates to have him competing against them in the primaries. If he is going to run as a 3rd party then that is where his name needs to be placed, otherwise, he just hurts the true Conservative Republican candidates like Sarah Palin.
The West Bank and Gaza Ghetto are Occupied Territories according to international law and countless UN resoultions Israel has continuously ignored.Only “disputed” in The minds
of Israel and her supporters.
It is important to note that these illegal settlements are exclusively Jewish,and are connected by roads that are also exclusive.The IDF supports the whole ROTTEN system and is let loose on the Non Jewish captive Palistinian populace corralled in Israel designed Ghettos.The Aim is to make the lives of these Non Jews so insuferable as to drive them off their lands and bring in Jewish Israelis.
Now if you build an Apartheid society not too many would argue it’s not wrong,but the Israeli model is Funded buy things like tax free Israel Bonds and other slippery financial intsruments with origins MOSTLY in these United States.
Furthermore,Israel receives over $10 million a day in US DOLLARS that we know of.Unique in the annals of US foriegn aid:US “CASH” is deposited in the Israeli treasury at the begining of each year,and the US tapayer pays the interest on that Borrowed money.Israel invests in turn that New money and collects interest.How sweet ’tis.
According to the Christian Science Monitor,the cost of Israel to the American TAXpayer has been over $1.3 TRILLION since 1973.