Ramallah, August 3(ANI): The Palestinian Authority has dismissed a potential Israeli concession on the future borders of a Palestinian state as a ploy, dealing a setback to hopes for a swift resumption of peace talks.
Senior officials responded with considerable suspicion to claims that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was prepared to compromise on his long-standing objections to Palestinian sovereignty over the occupied West Bank within its current boundaries.
Israel took observers by surprise when Netanyahu said he was prepared to accept that a Palestinian state should roughly follow the contours of the 1967 ceasefire lines, separating the West Bank from Israel.
Israel insisted that adjustments would have to be made to allow it to annex some if its larger settlements in the West Bank in exchange for land in Israel.
Palestinian officials have challenged Netanyahu's sincerity, suggesting that he was engaged in a ruse and that he would never live up to his word.
"When I hear this from Netanyahu's lips, that he will accept an Israeli state along 1967 borders, I will believe it. But what I have read so far is a masterpiece of PR and linguistics. [The Israelis] do this very well", the Telegraph quoted a leading Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, as saying.
"Such an important thing deserves that Netanyahu speak to his people in Hebrew, Arabic, English or Chinese, so we can hear him saying that he accepts a two state solution along the 1967 borders. If he cannot do this, then all this is PR and deceit. I'm not saying I disbelieve it, but I want to hear it from his mouth," he added.
A senior Palestinian official challenged Netanyahu to make his offer public.
"This is not a serious statement from Netanyahu. But if he goes publicly and states that he is ready to negotiate, he will find Palestine willing to start talks immediately" said Nabil Abu Rudeina, a senior aide to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.
Yet even if Netanyahu is sincere, his offer is couched in caveats that the Palestinians are unlikely to accept.
Jerusalem officials have said that the offer stands if the Palestinians are prepared to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and retract their application for recognition of an independent Palestinian state, which is to be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly next month.
Other Palestinians have interpreted the move as a sign of Israeli panic that the General Assembly could grant some of kind of recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state next month. (ANI)
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