Fatah leader: Priority is geting international recognition for Palestinian state along '67 borders
Headline: “Erekat meets with the American Consul General and holds Israel responsible for the failure of the negotiations”
“Saeb Erekat, member of the Fatah Central Committee and head of the Palestinian negotiating team, called for immediate intervention to halt recent Israeli actions, expressed in settlement tenders in east Jerusalem and in some West Bank settlements, including the building of a railway line to connect the settlement of Ariel in the occupied district of Salfit and Tel Aviv. This was during Erekat’s meeting with the American Consul General, Daniel Rubinstein. Erekat emphasized that the Israeli government bears sole responsibility for ruining the peace process, since it has chosen to continue settlement building, imposition of dictates, and establishing facts on the ground, instead of instituting peace. He said, ‘The time has come for the American government to declare explicitly that the Israeli government is responsible for sabotaging all the efforts being made to launch the peace process.’
Erekat emphasized that the cessation of all settlement activity, including in Jerusalem, is the key to renewing direct talks, and that time should be devoted to decisions, not negotiations, such that recognition by the American administration and the European Union for the State of Palestine on the June 4, 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, should be the main focus if the international community wants to leave hope for the institution of peace on the basis of the principle of two states.”
“Saeb Erekat, member of the Fatah Central Committee and head of the Palestinian negotiating team, called for immediate intervention to halt recent Israeli actions, expressed in settlement tenders in east Jerusalem and in some West Bank settlements, including the building of a railway line to connect the settlement of Ariel in the occupied district of Salfit and Tel Aviv. This was during Erekat’s meeting with the American Consul General, Daniel Rubinstein. Erekat emphasized that the Israeli government bears sole responsibility for ruining the peace process, since it has chosen to continue settlement building, imposition of dictates, and establishing facts on the ground, instead of instituting peace. He said, ‘The time has come for the American government to declare explicitly that the Israeli government is responsible for sabotaging all the efforts being made to launch the peace process.’
Erekat emphasized that the cessation of all settlement activity, including in Jerusalem, is the key to renewing direct talks, and that time should be devoted to decisions, not negotiations, such that recognition by the American administration and the European Union for the State of Palestine on the June 4, 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, should be the main focus if the international community wants to leave hope for the institution of peace on the basis of the principle of two states.”