July 29, 2013 -- Updated 1122 GMT (1922 HKT)
With another round of Mideast peace talks set to begin, some hint that
these talks might finally prove to be fruitful, while others aren't as
hopeful. FULL STORY
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ISRAEL APPROVES PRISONER RELEASE
A flicker of hope as Israeli-Palestinian peace talks set for Monday
July 29, 2013 -- Updated 1628 GMT (0028 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Peace negotiations are to start Monday night in Washington, the U.S. State Department says
- Israel plans to release 104 Palestinian prisoners, starting next week
- Any peace plan would have to be approved by a vote of Israelis, Israel's Cabinet says
- The goal of the talks is to agree to a Palestinian state's borders, make security arrangements
U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry reiterated praise for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday
morning.
The talks will be "a
difficult process," but he added that the consequences of not trying
could be worse. Kerry said the goal is to seek "reasonable compromises"
on "tough, complicated, emotional" and symbolic issues, then he
announced former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, as U.S. envoy to the talks.
Indyk understands that
peace will not come easily, but that "there is now a path forward, and
we must follow that path with urgency," Kerry added.
The goal of the talks is to establish a Palestinian state with security arrangements and agreed-upon borders with Israel.
Indyk said that he
recalled a screen saver that his son once created for him -- a single
question that ran across his monitor: "Dad, is there peace in the Middle
East yet?"
Kerry announces breakthrough in Mideast
"For 15 years, I've only
been able to answer him, 'Not yet,'" Indyk told reporters. But he said
he is hoping that these talks would mark a change.
President Barack Obama said the talks are "a promising step forward" but "hard work and hard choices remain ahead."
In a precursor to the
talks, Netanyahu prodded the Israeli government into approving the
release of 104 Palestinian prisoners -- a move that flies in the face of
popular sentiment in Israel.
"This moment is not easy
for me. It is not easy for the ministers," he said. "It is not easy
especially for the families, the bereaved families, whose heart I
understand. But there are moments in which tough decisions must be made
for the good of the country, and this is one of those moments."
The measure passed 14-6, with two abstentions.
"It's easy to see why Israelis wouldn't be happy about this because some of these prisoners are murderers," said Elliott Abrams,
an expert on U.S. policy in the Middle East with the Council on Foreign
Relations. "There are some of them who've thrown bombs onto buses.
There are a lot of victims in Israel who are outraged and speaking out
in media there asking, 'Why do we have to give Palestinians some kind of
concession to get them to the negotiating table?' They're asking, 'Why
are we having to let people out of prison with blood on their hands?' "
Defense Minister Moshe
Ya'alon spoke in an internal Cabinet meeting Sunday, saying: "There is a
heavy price to pay about the freeing of prisoners, from the moral point
of view, the legal point of view and deterrence.
"I wish we would not
have such dilemmas," he continued. "However, in the situation which has
come about, there will be a heavy price to pay if we decide not to go
into a peace process and are blamed for that in our strategic connection
with the U.S.A. and other Western countries."
Also at Sunday's
meeting, the Cabinet approved the opening of diplomatic negotiations
with the Palestinians and authorized a team headed by Netanyahu and four
other top ministers to conduct the prisoner release.
The votes were designed to build confidence and help kick-start the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The first of four waves of releases is scheduled to come after the negotiations get under way.
But Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti called the gesture too little, too late.
"The number of prisoners
who will be released will be 104 out of 4,800 Palestinian prisoners
inside Israeli prisons, so it is a very small number in comparison,"
according to Barghouti, who said this group should have been set free
after the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993.
"They were all arrested before the Oslo agreement. They lost 20 and 30
years of their life, and there is no justification for that at all."
The players
The Israelis will be
represented at the talks by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak
Molcho, and the Palestinians will be represented by Chief Negotiator
Saeb Erakat and Mohammad Shtayyeh, State Department spokeswoman Jen
Psaki said in a statement.
Some observers see the
Palestinian prisoner release vote, for example, is a sign that the talks
have a good chance at being successful.
But it's not just in the
hands of politicians. The Israeli Cabinet approved a measure stating
that any agreement with the Palestinians will be submitted to Israelis
for a vote.
And while leaders meet
in Washington, violence raged in the region. Palestinian police in
Ramallah, West Bank, clashed with marchers protesting the negotiations.
The protesters believe
the talks indicate a "willingness to concede, against the position of
the Palestinian national consensus and even the decisions of the PLO
institutions themselves," and called the planned talks "deeply dangerous
to the Palestinian national cause," said the Addameer Prisoner Support
and Human Rights Association, a Jerusalem-based Palestinian
nongovernmental organization.
And Hamas, which governs
the Palestinian territory of Gaza, issued a statement saying that it
"rejects the Palestinian Authority return to peace talks with the
Israeli occupation authorities."
CNN's Michael Schwartz reported from
Jerusalem and Ashley Fantz wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Kareem Khadder
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