Israel's Security Is A Top Issue In Peace Talks.

Robert Duncan

Friday, November 12, 2010

2:50p.m.

While Palestine says that it will not come to the table again while Israel is building settlements on the West Bank, Israel and the U.S. are still talking about possible solutions to the situation. The new subject in the talks is Israel’s security in the event of some sort of peace agreement. The U.S. has declared that it has an: "unshakable commitment to Israel's security and to peace in the region". The peace talks are scheduled to resume even without input from the Palestinian government. The U.S. is still hopeful that the talks could end with Palestine living independently beside Israel. The issue of the continued settlements was not spoken of during the latest meeting, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the settlements might be worked out into a sort of land exchange between the two nations. The Palestinian concern that Israel will push on with the settlements was highlighted when Israel announced this week that it would be proceeding with the construction of an entirely new housing project in the West Bank area.

The continued settling on the West Bank of Palestine by the Israelis was agreed to be counterproductive by the U.S. and Palestine earlier it the month, in an effort to make the Israeli government put another freeze on the construction. Though Israel is practically stealing land from the Palestinians, some of the people of the West Bank have been able to find jobs working on the settlements themselves. As counterintuitive as it seems at first, the situation is somewhat beneficial to the Palestinians. They obviously cannot stop the Israelis from building the settlements, and stealing their land, so, many of the citizens of the West Bank have started to help them do it. This is might actually provide some financial relief for the people of the West Bank who have no other options.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/11/201011126320755993.html