Israel, Palestine talks will be tough: Benjamin Netanyahu

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 21, 2013 12:28PM GMT

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says resuming stalled peace talks with the Palestinians will not be easy.

During a weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu told Israeli ministers that any draft treaty would be put to a referendum.

Netanyahu remarks came after US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel have agreed to meet and prepare for the resumption of talks.

Netanyahu said he hoped the talks would be held 'in a responsible, practical and serious manner.'

Kerry has visited the Middle East six times in an effort to resume talks, which have been stalled since September 2010 due to the illegal expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Although the PA has called for a halt to the construction of illegal settlements, Israeli ministers have voiced opposition to a freeze on settlement expansion.

'It's inappropriate for the Jewish people, for the land of Israel and for a sovereign state,' Housing Minister Uri Ariel said. 'We are in favor of building as much as possible.'

On July 19, spokesman for the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, rejected the proposal made by Kerry for the resumption of talks between the two sides.

The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds more than four decades ago.

The Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds (Jerusalem), and the Gaza Strip and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the Palestinian territories occupied in the Six-Day War of 1967.

Tel Aviv, however, has refused to return to the 1967 borders and is unwilling to discuss the issue of al-Quds.

The United Nations and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbids construction on occupied lands.

SZH/PR