As Israeli-Palestinian negotiations remain at an impasse, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week called on the two sides to find a formula to begin the final-status talks.
Netanyahu, speaking Wednesday on CNN, reiterated Israel’s demand that the negotiations must be conditioned on a Palestinian crackdown on terror.
Netanyahu said that Israel bore no illusions that the war against terror could be 100 percent successful. But he added that Israel did expect a 100 percent effort by the Palestinians against it.
The negotiations, along with Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation, were broken off by the Palestinians after Israel began building the Har Homa neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem in March.
Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy is scheduled to discuss the impasse when he meets in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said no date had yet been set for the meeting, but Israel Radio said it would take place May 16.
The State Department this week denied reports in Israel that Levy had been invited to meet with Albright on Friday, noting that she would be out of the country at the time.
Meanwhile, Labor Party Knesset member Yossi Beilin continued his own efforts to advance the peace track, meeting with foreign diplomats to discuss his own initiative.
Beilin, an architect of the Israeli-Palestinian accords, said his plan was based on a number of key points, including an Israeli agreement to halt construction at Har Homa and a Palestinian commitment to crack down on terror.
Beilin’s dovish attitude toward the Palestinians is not shared by other members of the Labor Party, which held a stormy discussion this week over whether to support Palestinian statehood in its party platform.
The matter is expected to be decided at an upcoming party bureau meeting.
In another development Wednesday, Israel lifted a closure it had imposed on the West Bank and Gaza Strip before the start of Passover.
Israeli authorities allowed into Israel some 55,000 Palestinian workers, who must be married and older than 30.
Netanyahu told CNN that Israel had decided to lift the closure despite ongoing security dangers because “we want to ease up on the economic hardships” facing the Palestinians.
The Israeli head for security cooperation with the Palestinians in the West Bank, Col. Moshe Elad, said that despite the lifting of the closure, tensions remained high in the territories.
In a sign of those tensions, a Palestinian was killed north of Jerusalem on Wednesday when Israeli police opened fire on the car in which he was traveling after the driver ignored their orders to stop.
Police said they shot at the car’s tires and it slammed into a truck.
Israeli officials were investigating whether the Palestinian was killed in the crash or as a result of bullet wounds. The driver fled the scene.
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