Israeli, Palestinian Authority officials meet in Ramallah
Israel has not ruled out contact with a Palestinian government actively supported by Hamas, only diplomatic negotiations with such an entity, a government source said Monday following a high-level meeting between Israeli and Palestinian officials a day earlier.
Despite Israeli anger at the recent Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon on Sunday met in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. Jason Greenblatt, the US special representative for international negotiations, also took part in the meeting.
Kahlon was joined by his director-general, Shai Babad, and by the coordinator of government activities in the territories, Maj.-Gen. Yoav (Poli) Mordechai. Kahlon’s Palestinian counterpart, Shukri Bishara, as well as Hussein a-Sheikh, head of the Palestinian Civil Affairs Authority and Palestinian intelligence service head Maj.-Gen. Majid Faraj were also in attendance.
Although the participation of Faraj would seem to indicate that the meeting dealt with more than just economic issues, Kahlon – speaking at a Kulanu faction meeting Monday afternoon – stressed that the talks were economic, not diplomatic.
“I told them, unequivocally, that we will not recognize the unity until our [captive] boys are brought home, the soldiers and the civilians,” Kahlon stated. “We will not recognize it until they are one authority, and not where Hamas has weapons and the PA has weapons. We have other conditions for recognition of the unity, if it happens.”
Greenblatt tweeted a picture of the meeting on Monday, writing that “important progress” was made.
“Meaningful steps forward on key economic issues – revenues, customs and investment – that help support the search for peace,” he wrote in his tweet of the meeting.
Greenblatt, who has been in the region since before Sukkot, returned to the US on Monday.
A White House official said the meeting focused on ways to improve the Palestinian economy, as part of US President Donald Trump’s “goal of unlocking the potential of the Palestinian economy to enhance the prospects for a comprehensive peace agreement.”
The meeting came amid a number of others in recent weeks to enhance prospects for a peace agreement, including last week in Saudi Arabia attended by Trump’s adviser
and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategy Dina Powell and Greenblatt, and Greenblatt’s meetings over the last month in Cairo, Amman, Ramallah and Jerusalem.
“The administration will continue to work with both sides to advance the prospects for peace,” said the White House official. “The US administration has reaffirmed that peace between Israelis and Palestinians can only be negotiated directly between the two parties and that the United States will continue working closely with the parties to make progress toward that goal. No deal will be imposed on Israelis and Palestinians; the administration remains committed to facilitating a deal that improves conditions for both parties.”
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the Palestinians raised the issue of settlements in the meeting; expressed their “complete rejection” of Israel’s recent decisions related to settlement building; and called on Israel to prevent settlers from attacking Palestinian farmers and to stop “Jewish extremists” from visiting the Temple Mount.
In addition, Wafa said the Palestinian officials called on Israel to lift restrictions on movement of goods and people into and out of Gaza.
The Palestinians requested that projects in Area C of the West Bank be promoted, and pushed for establishment of industrial zones that were previously agreed upon. Working groups were created to move forward the construction of joint industrial zones at Tarkumiya in the South Hebron Hills, and Jalama near Jenin.
Sunday night’s meeting came just two weeks after the security cabinet decided that Israel would not conduct diplomatic negotiations with a Palestinian government that “relies” on Hamas, unless Hamas disarmed and accepted a number of conditions, including recognizing Israel, disavowing terrorism and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
Kahlon’s meeting came before a new Hamas-Fatah government was formally put into place.
Furthermore, according to a government source, the security cabinet decision specified that Israel would not hold diplomatic negotiations with a Fatah-Hamas government. The carefully worded statement did not rule out any and all contact with a unity government.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a member of the security cabinet, had demanded that Israel sever all ties with the PA as a result of the pact, which he said turned it into a “terrorist authority,” but that position was not accepted.
Kahlon, who meets periodically with senior PA officials, last met Hamdallah at the end of May to brief him on steps the security cabinet decided to take, following Trump’s visit, to improve the situation with the PA.