JERUSALEM — Palestinian leaders asked the American envoy to the Middle East on Friday to press Israel’s new government to accept the notion of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and other Palestinian officials met with the envoy, George J. Mitchell, at the Palestinian Authority's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah a day after Mr. Mitchell held talks with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s conservative-leaning prime minister, and other Israeli leaders.
Mr. Netanyahu, who took office last month, has refused to explicitly support Palestinian statehood, and says that the new government is still formulating its policies. He told Mr. Mitchell that it was time for “new approaches and fresh ideas,” and said thePalestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state, a condition Palestinian negotiators have long refused to meet.
But Mr. Mitchell said after the meeting in Ramallah that “a two-state solution is the only solution,” and that a comprehensive peace in the Middle East was “in the national interest of the United States,” as well as in the interests of Palestinians and Israelis.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide and veteran Palestinian negotiator, said in a statement on Friday that the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state before negotiations was “an admission by Netanyahu that he cannot deliver on peace” and a stalling tactic. He noted that the Palestine Liberation Organization had already recognized the state of Israel while Mr. Netanyahu “refuses to even mention a Palestinian state.”
Palestinians contend that recognition of Israel’s Jewish character would negate Palestinian refugees’ demand for the right of return and would be detrimental to the status of Israel’s Arab citizens, who make up a fifth of the population.
In Gaza, two top leaders of Hamas, the Islamic group that holds power there, made their first public appearances since Israel’s military offensive that ended in mid-January. Ismail Haniya, who leads the Hamas government in Gaza, and Mahmoud Zahar, a senior official, preached at separate mosques.
Apparently in a challenge to the rival Palestinian Authority leaders as they met with Mr. Mitchell in the West Bank, Mr. Zahar said in his sermon, “We cannot, we will not, and we will never recognize the enemy in any way, shape or form,” Reuters reported.
A Palestinian man was killed Friday in the West Bank during a demonstration against Israel’s separation barrier after being struck in the chest by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli forces, according to other demonstrators. The dead man, killed during the protest in Bilin, a village near Ramallah, was identified by local residents as Basem Ibrahim Abu Rahma, 31. Nasir Samara, a member of a group in Bilin that helps organize the weekly demonstrations against the barrier, said in a statement that the high-velocity tear gas canister that hit Mr. Abu Rahma had been fired from a distance of about 20 yards.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said security forces had been trying to disperse a violent demonstration during which demonstrators threw stones and other objects. She said the army was checking the report about the Palestinian death and had asked to join Palestinian officials in investigating the cause of death.
A little more than a month ago, an American citizen, Tristan Anderson, was critically wounded when he was struck in the forehead by a similar high-velocity tear gas canister at a demonstration in a nearby village, Nilin.
Activists have accused the Israeli forces of shooting the tear gas canisters directly into crowds, turning the canisters into lethal weapons rather than a means of crowd dispersal. Mr. Anderson, 38, from Oakland, Calif., is still hospitalized in Tel Aviv.
Also on Friday, a Palestinian armed with a knife infiltrated a Jewish settlement, Beit Haggai, south of Hebron in the West Bank, and was shot dead by an Israeli whom he had tried to stab, the Israeli military said. Palestinian television identified the infiltrator as Rabah Sidr, 18.
Source: The New York Times
