Trump endorses separate Palestinian state as goal of Mideast peace talks
By Anne Gearan and Ruth Eglash | September 26
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...b1e46bb3bc7_story.html?utm_term=.099c19797246
Australia formally recognizes West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
Dec 15, 2018 / CBS/AP
SYDNEY -- Australia now formally recognizes west Jerusalem as Israel's capital. But it won't move its embassy until there's a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Saturday.
Morrison said Australia would recognize east Jerusalem as Palestine's capital only after a settlement has been reached on a two-state solution. The Australian Embassy won't be moved from Tel Aviv until such a time, he said.
While the embassy move is delayed, Morrison said his government would establish a defense and trade office in Jerusalem and would also start looking for an appropriate site for the embassy. He said the decision respects both a commitment to a two-state solution and long-standing respect for relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions.
"The Australian government has decided that Australia now recognizes west Jerusalem, as the seat of the Knesset and many of the institutions of government, is the capital of Israel," Morrison said.
Australia becomes the third country to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital following the U.S. and Guatemala. Unlike its predecessors, though, Australia recognized only the western part of the city. The move is therefore unlikely to please either side entirely.
Refusing to include east Jerusalem, home to the city's most important religious sites, is likely to upset Israeli nationalists who dominate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition.
For the Palestinians, it offers a partial resolution to an issue they believe should be resolved through negotiations.
Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat slammed Australia's "irresponsible policies" that led to the recognition.
"The policies of this Australian administration have done nothing to advance the two-state solution," Erekat said in a statement, stressing the Palestinian view that the holy city remains a final-status issue in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which have run aground.
There was no immediate comment from Israel's government on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move that is not internationally recognized. Israel considers east Jerusalem an indivisible part of its capital, while the Palestinians seek the area -- home to the city's most sensitive holy sites -- as the capital of a future state.
Israel has built a dozen settlements in east Jerusalem since 1967, BBC News reports. They considered illegal under international law.
Morrison said his country should use its "incredible influence" with Israel in an effort to bring to an end a "rancid stalemate" in the region, the BBC reported.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/australia-recognizes-west-jerusalem-as-the-capital-of-israel/
Russia also recognizes west jerusalem.
Russia will recognize West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital only if East Jerusalem becomes Palestine’s
In a diplomatic missive endorsing the two-state solution, Moscow has said that it is ready to recognize West Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital, providing that statehood is granted to Palestinians, who will base their capital in the eastern part of the city.
“The stalling of the Middle East peace process has created conditions for unilateral moves that undermine the potential for an internationally accepted solution to the Palestinian problem, under which two states – Israel and Palestine – could live in peace and security with each other and with their neighbors,” said the Russian Foreign Ministry in an English-language statement on its website.
what you think about the link i linked. The confederation plan
The Golan Heights were part of Syria until 1967, when Israel captured most of the area in the Six Day War, occupying it and annexing it in 1981. That unilateral annexation was not recognized internationally, and Syria demands the return of the territory.
Syria tried to regain the Heights in the 1973 Middle East war, but was thwarted. Israel and Syria signed an armistice in 1974 and the Golan had been relatively quiet since.
In 2000, Israel and Syria held their highest-level talks over a possible return of the Golan and a peace agreement. But the negotiations collapsed and subsequent talks also failed.
Security. Israel says that the civil war in Syria demonstrates the need to keep the plateau as a buffer zone between Israeli towns and the instability of its neighbor.
Israel’s government says it also fears that Iran, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is seeking to establish itself permanently on the Syrian side of the border in order to launch attacks on Israel.
Both sides covet the Golan’s water resources and naturally fertile soil.
Syria insists that the part of the Golan held by Israel remains occupied territory and has demanded its return.
More than 40,000 people live on the Israeli-occupied Golan, more than half of them Druze residents.
The Druze are an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam and many of its adherents in Syria have long been loyal to the Assad regime.
After annexing the Golan, Israel gave the Druze the option of citizenship, but most rejected it and still identify as Syrian. About another 20,000 Israeli settlers also live there, many of them working in farming and tourism.
Before the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2011, there was an uneasy stand-off between Israeli and Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
But in 2014 anti-government Islamist rebels overran Quneitra province on the Syrian side. The rebels forced Assad’s forces to withdraw and also turned on U.N. forces in the area, forcing them to pull back from some of their positions.
The area remained under rebel control until the summer of 2018, when Assad’s forces returned to the largely ruined city of Quneitra and the surrounding area following a Russian-backed offensive and a deal that allowed rebels to withdraw.
Assad’s forces are now back in control of the Syrian side of the Quneitra crossing, which reopened in October 2018, while United Nations forces are still carrying out refurbishment works to positions they were forced to leave years ago.
Although Israel signaled that it would not impede the Syrian army’s return to Quneitra, it has repeatedly expressed concern that Assad may defy the U.N. armistice, or let his Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah allies deploy there.
A United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) is stationed in camps and observation posts along the Golan, supported by military observers of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO).
Between the Israeli and Syrian armies is a 400-square-km (155-square-mile) “Area of Separation” - often called a demilitarized zone - in which the two countries’ military forces are not permitted under the ceasefire arrangement.
The Separation of Forces Agreement of May 31, 1974 created an Alpha Line to the west of the area of separation, behind which Israeli military forces must remain, and a Bravo Line to the east behind which Syrian military forces must remain.
Extending 25 km beyond the “Area of Separation” on both sides is an “Area of Limitation” in which there are restrictions on the number of troops and number and kinds of weapons that both sides can have there.
There is one crossing point between the Israeli and Syrian sides, which until the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011 was used mainly by United Nations forces, a limited number of Druze civilians and for the transportation of agricultural produce.
Who are these Devils children you speak of ?The Devils Children have their finger in everything.