PA official leaves meeting with Israelis

The Palestinian Authority’s caretaker prime minister has walked out of a New York meeting with a top Israeli official over new Tel Aviv demands that undermine Palestinian rights.

Salam Feyadh left the meeting with Israeli regime’s Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon on Tuesday after the Tel Aviv official demanded the Palestinian side to recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” and denied Palestinian plea for “ease of movement” in the West Bank over Israel’s “security needs.”

Additionally, Ayalon conditioned economic aid to the West Bank on ending Palestinian efforts to boycott Israeli products.

Feyadh left a UN Ad-hoc Liaison Committee meeting on Tuesday and canceled a scheduled subsequent press conference with Ayalon.

“I also said that I don’t need the Palestinians to say Israel is a Jewish state in Hebrew. I need them to say it in Arabic to their own people. And also, I said if the Palestinians mean, at the end of the process, to have one Palestinian state and one bi-national state, this will not happen,” The Jerusalem Post quoted Ayalon as saying.

In the meeting, Feyadh said that Israel should ease Palestinian movement in the West Bank, a request the Israeli side flatly turned down.

Ayalon said that Israel would support the West Bank economy but called for guarantees that the money would not be used for incitement or a boycott against Israeli products.

Feyadh’s walkout comes amid US-sponsored negotiations between Israeli leaders and Palestinian Authority officials. The first round of talks was held in Washington nearly twenty months after a breakdown of negotiations in the wake of Israel’s devastating offensive on Gaza in late2008.

Most Palestinian factions have condemned the talks, citing Tel Aviv’s refusal to freeze expansion of illegal settlements and Washington’s persistent and unconditional backing of Israel over Palestine.