2010–2011 Israeli–Palestinian Peace Talks

When Benjamin Netanyahu formed his government in March 2009, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman signaled an early break with prior diplomacy by stating that the government was not bound by the Annapolis Declaration and had not agreed to resume negotiations from where they had stopped under former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.[1] That position complicated the immediate renewal of substantive talks and shaped the administration's approach to the peace process from the outset.

In November 2009, Netanyahu announced a ten-month suspension of new settlement construction permits in the West Bank.[2] The freeze was partial: it excluded East Jerusalem, housing already under construction, public buildings such as schools and synagogues, and infrastructure required for national security.[2] The Obama administration described it as an important first step, but Palestinians continued to call for a complete freeze, and the distinction between the West Bank and East Jerusalem proved immediately contentious.[2] Israel maintained that the freeze excluded East Jerusalem, while Palestinians said they would not return to the negotiating table while construction continued there.[1]

A further diplomatic complication arose in March 2010, during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visit to the region, when Jerusalem's planning commission approved 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo, beyond the Green Line.[1] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rebuked Netanyahu and demanded that he order the decision cancelled; Netanyahu expressed regret for the timing and said construction would not begin for several years.[1]

Despite those tensions, in March 2010 U.S. special envoy George Mitchell announced that both Israeli and Palestinian leaders had accepted indirect, or proximity, talks, describing discussions of their “structure and scope” and stating that the aim was to move to direct negotiations as soon as possible.[3] Formal proximity talks, mediated by Mitchell, began in May 2010.[1] During this phase, each side could raise ideas about issues including Jerusalem, but practical discussion of core final-status matters was reserved for direct negotiations.[1]

After meeting President Barack Obama at the White House on July 6, 2010, Netanyahu called publicly for a transition from proximity to direct talks, arguing that the indirect format had already cost the process “about a year” and urging that no more time be lost.[3] The Palestinian Authority's position was more cautious: Abbas had sought agreement on territorial principles based on the 1967 lines with limited land swaps, a predetermined timetable, and an extension of the settlement construction freeze before entering direct talks.[4] An INSS analysis describes U.S. pressure as instrumental in Abbas conceding those preconditions and notes that the announced one-year goal was expressed as a hope, not a binding commitment.[4]

On August 20, 2010, Secretary of State Clinton announced the resumption of direct peace talks, inviting Netanyahu and Abbas to Washington for a formal relaunch on September 2.[5] President Obama was to meet both leaders, along with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah, at a White House dinner on September 1; Netanyahu and Abbas were then to begin direct talks the following day.[5] The stated goal was an agreement within a year on the permanent-status issues of borders, security, Jerusalem, and refugees.[5]

George Mitchell described the negotiations as direct and bilateral, with the United States participating actively but not replacing the parties, and said the parties were to determine their own terms of reference and how to sequence the issues.[6] On September 2, Netanyahu and Abbas opened direct negotiations in Washington.[7] Mitchell announced that the sides had agreed to work toward a framework agreement as a step toward a peace treaty, with a second round planned for September 14–15.[8]

The stated agenda encompassed the full range of final-status issues: Jerusalem, settlements, borders, security, water, refugees, and — raised by Abbas — detainees.[7] Mitchell cautioned, however, that mentioning these issues did not mean the first meeting had involved a detailed or extended debate about them; the framework was presented as a route to the fundamental compromises needed for a comprehensive treaty, not as an interim agreement.[8]

The parties disagreed from the outset over how to sequence the discussions. Netanyahu preferred to establish principles first, deferring core issues, and prioritized security and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state before addressing territorial questions.[9] The Palestinian Authority, backed by the U.S. administration, wanted talks to focus on borders and sought to resume from the point reached in negotiations with the Olmert government.[10] Abbas said he believed an agreement could be reached within a year but conditioned the talks on a continued settlement freeze.[9]

At the September 14 Sharm el-Sheikh summit, Netanyahu, Abbas, Clinton, and Egyptian President Mubarak held extended meetings as negotiators sought a compromise that could allow the talks to continue alongside some construction.[11] Mitchell said the sides had begun serious discussion of core issues and were working toward a framework agreement and a two-state outcome.[11] Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat at that stage rejected reports of a breakdown, saying, “There is no explosion; everything is continuing as usual.”[11] Israeli officials were reportedly considering confidence-building measures including prisoner releases and transferring some areas to Palestinian control.[12] These were reported as proposals under consideration, not agreed measures.[12]

The central crisis arrived on September 26, 2010, when the ten-month partial settlement moratorium expired.[13] Netanyahu had indicated it would not be extended and faced pressure from coalition partners to resume construction; Abbas had told President Obama in writing that he intended to leave the talks if the moratorium expired.[5] Hours before the deadline, approximately 2,000 settlers and supporters rallied at the Revava settlement, releasing balloons, while in nearby Kiryat Netafim residents laid the cornerstone for a new kindergarten.[14]

The day after the moratorium expired, Netanyahu urged Abbas to continue talks and said Israel was ready for continuous contacts, calling on both sides to “proceed in accelerated, sincere and continuous talks in order to bring about an historic peace framework agreement within one year.”[14] Abbas responded by calling for the freeze to be re-imposed, and his spokesman described it as necessary for talks to succeed.[14] U.S. diplomats met with Israeli and Palestinian officials as both sides sought a compromise to avoid an early breakdown, and reports indicated the parties had agreed to devote another week to finding one.[14]

The effort failed. Abbas, with support from Arab states, suspended Palestine Liberation Organization participation in the talks in early October 2010.[2] The Washington discussions and a second round in Egypt had taken place before the moratorium expired — a timeline of roughly three weeks of actual talks.[2] Netanyahu called for talks without preconditions and favored a comprehensive agreement that included security arrangements, while Abbas and the Palestinian leadership continued to reject direct talks until the settlement dispute was resolved.[2]

Palestinians had themselves initially rejected the moratorium as inadequate, since loopholes allowed construction to proceed on thousands of settlement apartments.[13] The moratorium had halted most new housing starts, but its exclusion of East Jerusalem remained a fundamental objection for the Palestinian side.[1] In October 2010, Israel announced plans for 238 additional housing units in East Jerusalem, prompting U.S. State Department disappointment.[1]

Accounts of responsibility for the collapse diverge. The INSS retrospective identifies Israel's rejection of a full West Bank construction freeze — which the Palestinians and the United States supported — as a factor that prevented the United States from converting indirect talks into renewed direct dialogue. It says the United States eventually abandoned efforts to persuade Israel to halt construction after concluding that a temporary freeze would not bring the Palestinians back to the table.[10] A Jewish Virtual Library account places greater emphasis on the Palestinian Authority's decision not to enter negotiations during the first nine months of the freeze, noting that the PA joined talks shortly before the moratorium expired and then warned it would leave if it was not extended.[15] The same account reports that Netanyahu was prepared to extend the freeze by three months but that the United States rejected the proposal.[15] These competing characterizations reflect the politically contested nature of the breakdown.

In December 2010, Secretary Clinton acknowledged publicly that the sides had not made the difficult decisions peace required and that direct negotiations would need to be relaunched.[16] She said that Netanyahu and Abbas had met face to face in Sharm el-Sheikh, Jerusalem, and Washington, and that these meetings had clarified the gaps between them.[16] She also described the sides as having agreed in principle to pursue a framework agreement setting out fundamental compromises on all permanent-status issues as a path toward a final peace treaty — though she acknowledged this goal had not yet been achieved.[16] Clinton said the United States would return to indirect negotiations focused on the conflict's core issues: borders, security, Jerusalem, settlements, and Palestinian refugees.[17] Netanyahu welcomed the change in U.S. approach and named Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, security arrangements, and refugees as issues he wanted addressed.[17]

In May 2011, President Obama called for renewed negotiations focused first on borders and security.[18] He said a lasting peace would involve two states for two peoples — Israel as the Jewish state and homeland of the Jewish people, and Palestine as the homeland of the Palestinian people — and that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”[18] He described the desired Palestinian state as sovereign and contiguous and called for security arrangements robust enough to prevent terrorism and weapons infiltration, alongside a phased Israeli military withdrawal coordinated with Palestinian security responsibility.[18] Obama stated that Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees remained unresolved issues that would need to be addressed in negotiations.[18]

Netanyahu, addressing the U.S. Congress later that month, rejected a return to the 1967 lines, while acknowledging that some settlements would end up beyond Israel's borders under a peace agreement and that borders would need to be negotiated.[19] He called for Palestinian recognition of the Jewish state, a demilitarized Palestinian state, an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley, and no negotiations with Hamas.[19] On the refugee question, Netanyahu argued that the problem should be resolved within a Palestinian state, and he maintained that Jerusalem should remain united.[19]

By April 2011, Abbas was reported as telling an Israeli civil-society delegation in Ramallah that he was prepared to forgo a September UN General Assembly request for Palestinian state recognition if negotiations resumed on the basis of an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines.[20] He called for a freeze on settlement activity — “We are not asking to move the settlements, but to freeze Israel's activity there and to give negotiations a chance” — while describing negotiations as the preferred path.[20] Around the same time, Netanyahu's aides were reported to be developing possible proposals in response to the anticipated Palestinian UN initiative, including transferring land outside settlement blocs to the Palestinian Authority and convening an international conference. Palestinian leaders considered the expected offer insufficient and continued to demand an end to settlement building before talks could begin.[21]

Running alongside — and separate from — the official diplomatic track, a series of secret, unofficial meetings took place in 2011 between Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Abbas.[22] The meetings were intended to develop a framework for restarting formal negotiations rather than to conclude a full peace treaty through the back channel.[22] Later accounts reported that meetings took place in London, Rome, and Amman, with Peres's longtime adviser Avi Gil and Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat accompanying the respective leaders.[22]

The reported framework under discussion was based on a Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 lines with equal land swaps.[22] Abbas's advisers indicated he was willing to “settle for” 98 percent of the West Bank, though this percentage was discussed rather than incorporated into the proposed framework statement.[22] The reported framework also addressed security, Jerusalem, refugees, and an end to mutual claims, but left especially sensitive questions — including arrangements for the Temple Mount and the Holy Basin — unresolved or for later discussion.[22]

A planned meeting in Amman on July 28, 2011, was cancelled after Netanyahu declined to provide the document or assurance that Peres was expected to present.[22] The accounts of the back channel conflict sharply over how close the parties came to an agreement and over Netanyahu's role in ending the effort. Peres later said that he and Abbas had reached a draft understanding on “almost all issues” and that Netanyahu stopped the potential agreement; the Prime Minister's Office denied that an agreement had been imminent and said Abbas had agreed to nothing.[23] Abbas was reported in 2011 as saying he had met Peres four times in Amman and London and that a fifth meeting was called off after Peres told him the government did not accept what they had negotiated.[23] These are attributed accounts, not an undisputed record of a completed deal.

On September 23, 2011, the Middle East Quartet — comprising the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia — put forward a framework urging the parties to resume direct bilateral negotiations “without delay or preconditions.”[24] The proposed timetable was ambitious: a preparatory meeting within a month to agree on an agenda and method; comprehensive proposals on borders and security within three months; substantive progress within six months; and a final agreement no later than the end of 2012.[24] The Quartet also proposed an international conference in Moscow at an appropriate time.[24]

Netanyahu accepted the call for unconditional talks; Israel formally accepted the Quartet's framework on October 2, stating it had reservations.[24] The United States indicated the Palestinians had accepted the proposal on September 29.[24] Abbas, however, publicly conditioned full acceptance on a settlement freeze, and the Quartet's statement notably did not include an explicit call for one.[25]

The Quartet's effort did not immediately produce face-to-face negotiations. In October 2011, the parties met separately with Quartet representatives rather than with each other.[26] Erekat reiterated that the Palestinians were prepared to negotiate once Israel froze settlement construction and accepted the 1967 lines as the basis for a border; Israel rejected those preconditions and said it was ready to negotiate without conditions.[26] The Quartet announced that both sides would submit comprehensive proposals on territory and security within three months and that it would review progress during that period — a commitment that likewise did not translate into resumed direct dialogue.[26]

Also in September 2011, Abbas submitted a formal request to the UN Security Council seeking admission of an independent Palestinian state to the United Nations.[10] The United States opposed a UN-sponsored process replacing direct negotiations.[10] The INSS account characterizes the Palestinian Authority's shift as deliberate: by 2011 there was no practical Israeli or U.S. plan to restart the political process, and the PA had redirected its activity toward state-building and seeking international support for recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.[10]

The 2010–2011 period produced extensive articulation of each side's positions on the conflict's core issues, even as substantive negotiation on most of them never advanced.

On borders and territory, the United States under Obama favored an agreement based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps, producing secure and recognized borders for both states.[18] Netanyahu rejected a return to the 1967 lines as indefensible, while acknowledging that a negotiated agreement would leave some settlements outside Israel's borders.[19] The PLO insisted Israel halt construction beyond the Green Line and accept the 1967 lines as terms of reference for negotiations.[27]

On security, Netanyahu called for a demilitarized Palestinian state and an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley.[19] Obama called for security arrangements that would address terrorism and emerging threats, alongside a phased Israeli military withdrawal coordinated with growing Palestinian security responsibility.[18]

Jerusalem remained among the most intractable issues. Netanyahu publicly opposed dividing the city and argued it should remain united under Israeli sovereignty.[19] Palestinian positions continued to demand sovereignty over East Jerusalem, including Al-Haram Al-Sharif.[1] Proposals attributed to Abbas combined a demand for Israeli withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the Old City with willingness to leave the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall under Israeli sovereignty and keep the Old City open to all religions.[1] Obama proposed addressing territory and security first, with Jerusalem deferred as one of the two remaining “wrenching and emotional issues” to be resolved once territorial outlines were established.[1]

On refugees, Clinton described the goal as a “just and permanent solution,” while Netanyahu maintained that the Palestinian refugee problem should be resolved within a Palestinian state.[16][19] On settlements, the parties differed fundamentally: Abbas called for a freeze as a condition for negotiations, while Netanyahu called for talks without preconditions and characterized the ten-month moratorium as an unprecedented step already taken.[28] Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was a further Israeli demand that the Palestinians did not accept as a term of reference.[10]

At the launch of the talks, Abbas also included water and detainees among the issues to be addressed.[7] These matters received less public attention than the freeze dispute but were part of the formally stated scope of the negotiations.

By February 2012, substantive Israeli–Palestinian negotiations had not resumed — not even the more limited discussions on borders and security that Obama had proposed in May 2011.[27] The Palestinian Authority increasingly pursued state-building and international recognition outside the stalled direct-talks track, submitting its UN membership request in September 2011.[10]

The talks' collapse reinforced divergent Israeli and Palestinian narratives about the peace process. From the Israeli side, Netanyahu argued that he had made an unprecedented concession with the ten-month freeze and called for negotiations on the substantive issues without further preconditions.[28] From the Palestinian side, the Palestinian Authority maintained that continued settlement construction made direct talks futile and that Israel bore responsibility for the impasse by refusing to extend the moratorium.[29]

The INSS characterized the broader Netanyahu-era period covered by this episode as one of political stalemate, with positions and proposals advanced but no substantive progress on any of the final-status issues and no agreed framework for resuming negotiations by the end of 2011.[10] The Jerusalem Institute identified the settlement-construction dispute, the expiry of the freeze, and unresolved disagreements over Jerusalem's final status as factors in the failure to sustain the direct talks.[1]

Pre-negotiation exchanges in January 2010 also formed part of the documentary record later published as the Palestine Papers. Minutes of a January 15 meeting between Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and U.S. official David Hale indicate that they discussed Jerusalem, the 1967 borders, settlement tenders, and the positions of other Arab nations.[30] The document shows that Palestinian and U.S. officials were discussing core negotiating questions months before the launch of direct talks.

Several central aspects of the 2010–2011 talks remain contested, particularly responsibility for the collapse, the meaning of the settlement moratorium, and the substance of the Peres–Abbas back channel.

The INSS retrospective identifies Israel's rejection of a full construction freeze as a factor in the failure to renew direct dialogue.[10] A Jewish Virtual Library account instead emphasizes the Palestinian Authority's delayed entry into negotiations and reports that Netanyahu offered a three-month extension that the United States declined to support.[15] A March 2011 Washington Institute analysis offered a sharply critical assessment of U.S. diplomacy and the parties' roles; this was the author's interpretation rather than a neutral determination of responsibility.[31]

The parties also disputed the moratorium's scope. Palestinians argued that its exceptions permitted thousands of apartments to remain under construction and made the restrictions inadequate.[13] Israel characterized the ten-month measure as unprecedented and maintained that East Jerusalem was outside its scope.[1][28]

Accounts of the Peres–Abbas channel remain contradictory. Peres said the parties had reached a draft understanding on almost all issues and that Netanyahu halted the effort, while the Prime Minister's Office denied that an agreement was imminent.[23] Abbas's reported account of a cancelled fifth meeting and the 98-percent figure attributed to his advisers remain participant characterizations rather than an agreed public text.[22][23]