Jordan and Israel Meet Over Palestine

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/4/jordan-israel-in-rare-meeting-on-palestinian-issue

Jordan, Israel in rare meeting on Palestinian issue

Jordanian FM stressed the creation of an independent Palestinian state was key to ending the conflict with Israel.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has held a rare meeting with his Israeli counterpart to press for the restart of stalled negotiations between the Palestinians and the Jewish state.

Thursday’s meeting came days after Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas visited Jordan as part of an Arab tour to raise support for the Palestinians after Joe Biden won last month’s United States presidential election.

During the meeting at the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge crossing between Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Safadi said the creation of an independent Palestinian state was key to ending the conflict with Israel.

“There is no alternative to a two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinians, he told Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, quoted by the official Petra news agency.

“It is necessary to return to the negotiating table according to international law in order to find a real solution to achieve a just peace,” Safadi said.

On Friday, Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz called on the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table, in a video statement addressing the “Palestinian people and their leadership”.

“The Middle East is changing. It is in your interest to come return to negotiate,” Gantz said in the statement that was posted online with Arabic subtitles.

“Don’t stay behind,” he said, promising to “promote big projects” in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip.

Tense relations
Thursday’s meeting was the first with Jordan officially reported between Safadi and Ashkenazi since the latter, a former army chief of staff, became foreign minister in May.

Jordan and Israel have been bound by a peace treaty since 1994, but relations between the two neighbours are often tense.

Safadi said resuming Israeli-Palestinian talks was timely, “particularly in light of the Palestinian Authority’s decision to resume security cooperation with Israel”.

The Palestinians announced last month they were restoring coordination they had stopped in May over Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank.

Israel put on hold its annexation plans, in return for an agreement to normalise ties with the United Arab Emirates announced in August.

Abbas held talks in Jordan last week with King Abdullah II ahead of visits to Egypt, where he met separately with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

During the tour, Arab leaders stepped up international efforts for a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict based on a two-state solution.

Talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014, and a US peace plan announced in January has been welcomed by Israel but rejected outright by the Palestinians as biased.

Cause for optimism?

😴 😴 😴

wake me when something actually happens over there.

I remember '67 like it was yesterday. It has been nothing but "peace talks" ever since

@earl-of-trumps said
😴 😴 😴

wake me when something actually happens over there.

I remember '67 like it was yesterday. It has been nothing but "peace talks" ever since

My poor Jerusalem!
Greatest city (well, large town) I’ve ever visited. Bat💩 crazy... but wow!
And that was in 96, 98.
Seemingly a lot has changed since then (rich Americans taking over Palestinian houses in the old city; aka East Jerusalem).

The Israeli’s (most of the major political parties) don’t want peace. They want the whole of Palestine to be Israel.
Yet, they don’t really want the Palestinians in Israel. Because then you’ll get the generational situation you have in Northern Ireland, where the minority slowly becomes a majority.

It is a bit of a conundrum for them...
And in the meantime, they’re creating a situation which guarantees generations of hatred, no matter what.

They know this.
So, why do they do it?
To build the case that the Palestinians will never let them live in peace... so they have to be resettled in another country. That’s better for all involved.

Oh history! You are a cruel master.

I wonder where the Jews are going to live when the Muslims take over the land?

@earl-of-trumps said
I wonder where the Jews are going to live when the Muslims take over the land?

@earl-of-trumps said
I wonder where the Jews are going to live when the Muslims take over the land?

@athousandyoung said
I suspect these Semitic people are negotiating because they want to focus on Iran together.

@athousandyoung said
I suspect these Semitic people are negotiating because they want to focus on Iran together.