Peace Talks Will Surely End In Failure

23 July 2013 | 21:52 Code : 1918985 From Other Media General category
Fararu.com’s interview with Hossein Sheikholeslam, advisor to the Parliament Speaker on international affairs
Peace Talks Will Surely End In Failure

John Kerry and the US are not mediators in peace talks between Israel and Palestine; they are rather one side of the issue. The Americans look to gain more concessions for Israel through the restart of these negotiations and they do not care about the people of Palestine and their land.

The peace talks stopped three years ago when settlement-buildings began in the occupied territories. Now these talks are set to begin at a time when these settlement-buildings have not been halted in these territories but have even been expanded.

In the run-up to these negotiations, Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, has claimed that he has no plan to stop the settlement-buildings. This is while this position taken by Israel has not seriously and officially been protested against by the US. On this basis and under these conditions, how could one consider US mediation as unbiased?

The Americans have chosen to restart the peace process under the present conditions because they assume that they can gain more concessions for Israel.

Peace talks are supposed to begin under circumstances when the Palestinian groups are seriously dealing with differences of opinion, the Arab world is confronted with domestic and foreign disputes, the resistance is focused on the Syrian civil war, and Egypt looks to gain stability. The Palestinian groups and the Arab world are somehow stuck in a weakened position. On this basis and under these conditions, one side of the negotiation, which is Israel, has the upper hand.

Therefore, the choice of such a time to restart the peace process is not incidental and the US certainly has sinister objectives and attempts to start these talks when the Palestinian groups are faced with internal differences and the Arab world is unstable, so that Israel can gain more from it.

Failure is the ultimate and guaranteed result of the peace talks, for there is no possibility of reaching enforceable agreements in these talks.

Mahmood Abbas is going to sit behind the negotiating table as the representative of the Palestinians when he practically has no authority. He cannot commit to anything on behalf of the Palestinians for the main decision-makers with regard to the future of Palestine are its people and the resistance groups. Therefore, any commitment made by Mahmood Abbas in these negotiations would have no executive guarantee because it would not have been approved by the Palestinian groups.

The US and the Israelis view the peace talks as a way of achieving calm and security for Israel.

This is while the main issues which should be discussed in this process must be Israel’s withdrawal to the   pre-1967 borders, putting an end to the occupation of the holy city of al-Quds, the issue of displaced Palestinians,… But the Americans look to ignore the main issues and try to gain security for Israel.

But Mahmood Abbas cannot give any commitments during this process to maintain the security of Israel because the resistance groups do not value his commitment and they will remove the calm from the eyes of the occupiers with their missiles.

tags: peace israel Palestine abbas kerry US