World powers urge Israel to ease checkpoints

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5894038&cKey=1119531940000

LONDON (Reuters) - World powers on Thursday urged Israel to allow Palestinians to move more freely around occupied territories, echoing a key demand from Palestinians ahead of the Jewish state's planned withdrawal from Gaza.

The Quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations called on Israel "to take immediate steps, without endangering Israeli security, ... to facilitate rehabilitation and reconstruction by easing the flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza and the West Bank and between them."

The four big diplomatic players also urged the Israelis and Palestinians to meet more frequently to hammer out plans for the mid-August Israeli pullout of settlers from Gaza, which they hope will spur peace moves.

"Contacts between the parties should now be intensified at all levels," the Quartet said in a statement issued after the powers met at ministerial level in London.

[Village Idiot]

1. Sure....that'll happen...

Maybe then they will also comply with the OTHER 138 UN resolutions (between 1967 and 2000) pertaining to Israel, beginning with resolution 237 and most aggregiously with UN Resolution 242...

[Behind the Aegis]

2. UN Resolution 242

Yes, lets hope that happens.

Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:

Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force; (emphasis mine)

UN Resolution 242

[Jim Sagle]

3. Or maybe the UN will drop its obsession with all things Israeli and start

working on REAL problems.