HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025614.tif

5
"Whatever we put forward has to be grounded in security
arrangements because of what is going on regionally," said Zalman
Shoval, one of a handful of Netanyahu aides drawing up the Israeli
proposal that may be delivered as a speech to the United States
Congress in May. "We are facing the rebirth of the eastern front as
Iran grows strong. We have to secure the Jordan Valley. And no
Israeli government is going to move tens of thousands of Israelis
from their homes quickly."
Those Israelis live in West Bank settlements, the source of much of
the disagreement not only with the Palestinians but with the world.
Not a single government supports Israel's settlements. The
Palestinians say the settlements are proof that the Israelis do not
really want a Palestinian state to arise since they are built on land that
should go to that state.
"All these years, the main obstacle to peace has been the
settlements," Nimer Hammad, a political adviser to President Abbas,
said. "They always say, 'but you never made it a condition of
negotiations before.' And we say, 'that was a mistake. "
The Israelis counter that the real problem is Palestinian refusal to
accept openly a Jewish state here and ongoing anti-Israeli incitement
and praise of violence on Palestinian airwaves.
Another central obstacle to the establishment of a State of Palestine
has been the division between the West Bank and Gaza, the first run
by the Palestinian Authority and the second by Hamas. Lately,
President Abbas has sought to bridge the gap, asking to go to Gaza to
seek reconciliation through an agreed interim government that would
set up parliamentary and presidential elections.
But Hamas, worried it would lose such elections and hopeful that the
regional turmoil could work in its favor
that Egypt, for example,
might be taken over by its ally, the Muslim Brotherhood - has
reacted coolly.
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025614