Palestinians call off peace talks after clash

[oberliner]

Source: AP via USA Today

QALANDIA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP) — A Palestinian official says planned peace talks with the Israelis scheduled for Monday have been called off following a deadly clash in the West Bank.

Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians Monday during clashes outside Jerusalem.

The Palestinian official says the Palestinians decided to postpone Monday's meeting to protest the killings. He says the Palestinians are also upset about an Israeli announcement on Sunday pushing forward with new settlement construction in east Jerusalem.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/08/26/palestinians-call-off-peace-talks-after-clash/2698763/

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. The more things change....

[JDPriestly]

2. The Palestinians should go ahead and participate in the talks and discuss this matter

as a part of the talks. If the Palestinians stopped the rock throwers, then the Israelis would not react. Sounds like a faction of the Palestinians wanted to eliminate the possibility of peace. Too bad. They are hurting themselves and their children.

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. Yeah, as always, it's all the Palestinians' fault. Those poor Israeli soldiers...

[JDPriestly]

5. Why don't the Palestinians go to the negotiations and air their grievances there, get the facts

out there?

Why are they using this incident as an excuse to avoid negotiating?

Are there facts that they do not want to have to discuss in an international setting?

Is it just easier to make public accusations you don't have to prove?

If they have been wronged, this is the perfect time to enter into negotiations. They would be entering the negotiations from a position of strength.

If they caused the altercation, or if factions among them caused it, then it makes sense that they don't want to enter negotiations at the this time since they would have to explain why the rock throwing was done at this time of hope that the negotiations will succeed.

If they feel that the Israelis wronged them, what better opportunity to get compensation in one form or another for the wrong than during the negotiations?

The Palestinians' use of this altercation to excuse them from the peace talks looks very weak. It makes it look like they never wanted to negotiate in the first place.

[azurnoir]

7. so you're saying that the Palestinians made it up 3 people are not dead?

or is the new settlements, makes around 3,000 new settlement units announced since 'Piece Talks"® began

So which is it?

[JDPriestly]

9. I'm saying that those are issues that should be raised and discussed at the negotiating

table and that, instead of shying away from negotiations because of these events, the Palestinians should be going to the investigations to negotiate terms for justice because of these events and any other grievances they have.

You don't have to negotiate peace when there is no conflict. It is precisely when there is conflict, when there is violence, that you must sit down and negotiate peace.

What are the Palestinians afraid of?

If they haven't done anything wrong, if they truly are victims then they should bring their evidence and ask for reparations or damages or whatever it is that would make for peace. Same with the Israelis.

This is utterly no excuse for not negotiating. This is yet another excuse to continue the conflict.

[azurnoir]

11. IMO uring so called Peace® talks Israel should show more commitment

than using its military to invade refugee camps and kill people not to mention putting more 'facts on ground' via settlment building to the tune of at least 3,000 new unit announced just since talks began

[JDPriestly]

12. Those are claims. We do not know all the facts.

If those facts are true and if they favor the argument that Israel attacked unarmed Palestinians without cause, then that is all the more reason that Palestine should go to the negotiation table.

Do the Palestinians have any evidence about what happened? Do they have photos, videos?

Do they have the testimony of eyewitnesses? They should take all that information to the negotiating table. It's time to get serious negotiations underway.

The world is sick of watching Israel and Palestine at each other's throats all the time.

It is time for that to stop. They have to get along.

No more delaying the negotiations.

[azurnoir]

13. Even Israel admits it killed the Palestinians

According to an IDF investigation, after the arrest at round 5:30 am, whistles and jeers began emanating from the densely crowded area, and Palestinian youths began throwing rocks and large stones at the force.

Then a back up perimeter force from the Artillery Corps awaiting nearby was alerted into the area to disperse the crowd and quell the potentially violent disturbance, the IDF's initial investigation claimed.

The forces then fired live rounds at the disturbances' chief instigators, which the army investigation claims did not respond to early warning shots and were posing a threat to the forces. The fire resulted in the death of three Palestinians and the wounding of 15 others. An IDF soldier sustained light injures and was treated on the scene.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4422568,00.html

[Violet_Crumble]

15. The fact is the IDF killed three Palestinians. Yr the only one questioning that fact...

I'm guessing from reading yr posts that you consider the use of live fire against Palestinians to be justified *if* they were throwing a stone. Not only that, you insist that the Palestinians must not only negotiate with Israel, but take their grievances about the killings to the 'negotiating' table. Really? So I'd expect that you must be also insisting that Edward Snowden return to the US to negotiate with the US authorities? Of course not, because that one doesn't involve Palestinians or trying to portray them as always in the wrong, so there's a completely different standard applied to non-Palestinians...

You referred to the killing of those Palestinians as merely an 'incident'. What I'd like to think the world is sick of watching is the way some place so little value on the lives of Palestinians that they're turned into an 'incident' and it's implied that they must have done something to cause it, even though anyone with a bit of knowledge of the conflict knows already that over the years there's been plenty of documented instances of the IDF and border police and even settlers carrying out unprovoked killings of Palestinians. But then, they also know that when it comes to negotiations, Israel flat-out refused to negotiate with the Palestinians until the 1980's, and more recently have refused to negotiate with Hamas. And interestingly, 'supporters' of Israel back then were all for not negotiating, while now with an extreme RW government in Israel that's made it clear that it's opposed to a Palestinian state and continues to expand settlements in the West Bank, all of a sudden they're singing a completely different tune...

[7962]

8. I agree. The Israelis are always supposed to "talk" while being rocketed,

and the leaders of the Palestinians will not say Israel has a right to exist, etc etc. Every time talks are started, something happens to stop them. They know the Israelis will react to whatever it may be.
Its just like a week or so ago; they were lobbing rockets in retaliation for something the Egyptian military had done. Any excuse will do.

[JDPriestly]

10. Yes. Both sides should talk no matter whether they are rocketing or throwing stones

or what they are doing. It's time to negotiate -- way past time. No more excuses from either side.

[LiberalLovinLug]

3. .....

[azurnoir]

6. well mission accomplished and with fortuitous timing too

as all eyes are on Syria

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. there was no FUCKING way that Israel would allow these talks to go.

they did everything they could to goad the Palestinians into reacting. the settlements alone was a "fuck you" as a prelude to talks.

apartheid? You betcha.

[azurnoir]

16. apparently this is false the meeting took place

Report: Israeli, Palestinian negotiators met in Jericho

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Jericho on Monday to discuss the peace process, despite an announcement by the PLO that talks had been canceled following the killing of three Palestinians earlier in the day.

A Palestinian official, who chose to remain anonymous, told the Xinhua News Agency that the two negotiation teams met in the house of chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in Jericho.

"Erekat presented to his Israeli counterparts a string protest to the earlier killing of three Palestinians by the Israeli soldiers' gunfire in northern Ramallah," the source said.

The US State Department, which is mediating the talks, insisted that no meeting planned as part of the ongoing peace process had been cancelled.

"I can assure you that no meeting has been cancelled," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters in Washington.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=624528

[oberliner]

17. Glad to hear that

Hopefully all those on this thread who made speculations based on inaccurate info will re-evaluate their perceptions.