By KHALED ABU TOAMEH, HILARY LEILA KRIEGER AND HE
12/10/2010
Mahmoud Aloul: Israel's racist policies meant to undermine talks; US State Department spokesman says wants to achieve clear path allowing Israel, Palestinians to continue peace process.

The Palestinian Authority has concluded that the peace process based on a two-state solution has failed, a senior Fatah official said on Tuesday.

His statement came as PA officials repeated their rejection of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's proposal to extend the settlement construction moratorium if the Palestinian leadership recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.

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But the US sought [desperately] to keep talks going, and called on the Palestinians to present their own counter-proposal to keep things on track.

Mahmoud Aloul, member of the Fatah Central Committee, said that "Israel's racist policies… were meant to undermine the peace process."

"The Palestinian Authority made every effort to avoid reaching this conclusion, but Israeli racist policies led to the failure of the peace process," he added.

Aloul accused the US Administration of failing to exert pressure on Israel to alter its policies and halt settlement construction.

"The Americans left us no choice but to stop the peace negotiations," he said. The Palestinian leadership has briefed the Arab leaders on the difficult situation and we have asked them to start taking real measures on the ground.

PLO negotiators Saeb Erekat and Nabil Shaath also reiterated their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Another PLO official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, accused Netanyahu of seeking to destroy the image of President Barack Obama in the Middle East by raising such a demand.
In Washington, however, the State Department continued to urge the sides to come to a compromise and called for Palestinians to make clear what would be acceptable to them in lieu of a declaration that Israel is a Jewish state.

“We want to see both of them stake the process. We want to see both of them offer their thinking about what needs to be, you know, advanced and agreed to that allows both sides to stay in these negotiations,” State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley said Tuesday. “Prime Minister Netanyahu has offered his thoughts on both what he's willing to contribute to the process, what he thinks he needs for his people out of the process, we would hope that the Palestinians would do the same thing.”

Crowley called on “both parties to continue to create conditions for the direct negotiations to continue.”

Please for once yet the Palestinians keep their word.

I have little hope that Israel should be so lucky, but maybe this will be the end of the pressure on Israel to engage in suicide by diplomacy.