PA Threatens to Break ‘Peace Talk’ Rules and Go to United Nations

It didn’t take very long for the Palestinian Authority to threaten to break the ground rules of the resumed talks, which calls for a nine-month period in which  chairman Mahmoud Abbas will not go back to his tactic of circumventing discussions with Israel by appealing to the United Nations to condemn Israel.

Palestinian Authority spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi said Wednesday that Israel is "deliberately destroying the chances of success for these talks" by accelerating settlement activities, the Beirut Daily Star reported.

The PA has protested Israeli announcements since the resumption of talks to build more homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria and in Jerusalem areas claimed by the PA.

"These are not just dots on a map," said Ashrawi. "These are willful and destructive measures to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.”

The other side of the coin is that freezing construction for Jews would be a measure to contribute to Arab efforts to prevent the existence of a Jewish state, which  chairman Mahmoud Abbas refuses to define as Israel.

Ashrawri is one of the most intellectual voices in the Palestinian Authority and also sits on the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which defines future PA borders as all of the Land of Israel.

So much for the two-state solution.

Concerning Israel’s building projects in, she stated, "If Israel carries out these plans... we will be forced to recourse to international judicial processes through international institutions.”  She made her remarks to reporters in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, a “settlement” by the definition of the Palestinian Authority and the West.

"We are not prepared to make the same mistakes and to have talks for their own sake as Israel continues [to build].”