Jericho, West Bank – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gave a political boost to the Palestinians on Tuesday, backing their claim to east Jerusalem as a capital and their demand that Israel must freeze all settlement construction before peace talks can resume.
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Medvedev, who was visiting the West Bank for the first time as president, spoke during a joint news conference with his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas.
His visit came at a time of corrosive deadlock in U.S.-led peace efforts. Russia is a member of the so-called Quartet of Mideast peace makers, along with the U.S., European Union and United Nations.
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations briefly resumed in September, but quickly broke down over the settlement issue. Abbas says he won’t negotiate unless Israel halts all construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, captured lands sought by the Palestinians for their state.
Talks have been stalled since an Israeli slowdown on settlement construction expired in September. The Obama administration has not presented a plan for bringing the sides together again.
In this vacuum, Medvedev affirmed the Palestinians’ right to a state, with east Jerusalem as a capital, though he did not say what he believed the borders of the state should be.
In recent weeks, several South American countries have taken such a step, recognizing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War.
Netanyahu has said Israel will not withdraw to the 1967 borders and that he will not relinquish east Jerusalem, which Israel annexed to its capital after the 1967 war. The annexation of the area, home to sensitive religious sites, has not been recognized by the international community.
Medvedev said Tuesday that the Palestinians have the right to a viable state with east Jerusalem as a capital.
The Russian leader also sided with the Palestinian demand that all settlement construction must stop.
Since 1967, Israel has moved nearly half a million Israelis into settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and Palestinians argue that partition becomes increasingly difficult as these enclaves expand.
“We discussed the conditions for resuming talks with Israel, which include continued self-control and strictly abiding by commitments, and before anything else, freezing all Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank and east Jerusalem,” Medvedev said.
Russia has been floating the idea of hosting a Mideast conference, but Medvedev suggested Tuesday that some progress in talks would have to made first. “The most important issue is the result, not the place and not the timing,” he said.
Abbas said halting settlement construction and resuming negotiations is also an Israeli interest. “There are two options, either peace or terror and violence,” he added. “We shall not choose terror and violence.”
The Palestinians seized the high-profile visit as an opportunity to showcase their progress toward building an independent state.
The ancient town of Jericho was decked out in Russian and Palestinian flags, and black-clad Palestinian troops with assault rifles lined the streets. Abbas and Medvedev were received by an honor guard in a red carpet ceremony.
Jericho is one of several semiautonomous Palestinian enclaves within the West Bank, where Israel maintains overall control. Israeli security forces were not visible along the access roads to Jericho on Tuesday.
Medvedev’s visit came nearly six years after a West Bank trip by his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. Medvedev and Abbas signed several cooperation agreements Tuesday.
Abbas’ prime minister, Salam Fayyad, has launched a plan to prepare the Palestinians for independence — building up the police force, the legal system and other institutions. He hopes to complete the mission by August.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Medvedev visit is a way of telling the world that the Palestinians are ready for statehood. “Look at us. We are ready for independence. That’s the message,” Erekat said.
The Russian president did not visit Israel because of a strike by Israeli diplomats seeking higher wages. The strike prevented the sides from making proper preparations.
Medvedev hinted at the unusual circumstances, saying that “this visit is important for two reasons … this is the first visit of a Russian Federation president to region and to the Palestinian Territories that does not include a visit to a neighboring state.”
Abbas laughed, and the Palestinian audience clapped.
Medvedev also visited a Russian-funded museum recently built on Jericho land bought by the Russian government in the 19th century.
The museum is to feature Russian art, an exhibit on cultural ties between Russia and Palestine and artifacts discovered during a salvage dig before construction began.
Who are they to demand?
What chutzpah! They and all others preceding them in their preposterous “demand” are a joke, to say the least. They should be minding their own countries.
And the Russians should give back the lands they stole from the Khazars!
‘Freeze’ sounds more Russia than Israel.
Nobody has the right to give away the Kotel to these Jordanians. Ramallah should be fine for their future capitol.
Russia killed 100,000 Chechen civilians in the 1990s. They wiped out entire square blocks of high rise apartment buildings with people inside. Who is he to lecture Israel?
Russia retains lands it annexed from Finland (Norrth of St Petersburg) from Germany (Kaliningrad, former Konigsberg) and Japan (the Kuril islands), but Israel has to stop building in its own capital. Russia per se used to be no larger than the Moscow region; all the rest is land that at some point was occupied and annexed. And the Nobody who is just Putin’s puppet goes around telling Israel what it can and can’t do. Just who do they think they are? An immoral, criminal, eternally anti-Jewish country. Israel should simply say, this land is ours a) according to Torah, and b) because we won it, and we will not give away even an inch.
whAT do they see in these palestinians? i see a bunch of gross, savage, primitive, and murderous people – what exactly do these liberals see?
#7 well said.
And don’t forget that Russia just took away part of Gergia and still has their tanks there.
At the end of the day the rule is-Who is stronger – he is right!