AJC Welcomes Resumption of Direct Palestinian-Israeli Peace Talks

NEW YORK, July 19, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC welcomed today's news that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to restart direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians appear to be successful. 

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Secretary Kerry announced the development to reporters in Amman, Jordan, after engaging in successive rounds of shuttle diplomacy between the two parties during his first six months at the helm of the U.S. State Department.

Tzipi Livni and Saeb Erekat, the chief Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, are expected to begin talks in Washington next week.

"If we don't succeed now, we may never get another chance," Secretary Kerry declared in his policy address before the AJC Global Forum in Washington, D.C., on June 3^rd.

After Kerry's speech last month, AJC Executive Director David Harris stated "AJC has consistently supported a peace agreement that would lead to Israel, the Jewish state, and Palestine, the Palestinian state, living side-by-side in peace and security.  Indeed, this has been the declared vision of four consecutive Israeli prime ministers, dating back to Ehud Barak and continuing to Benjamin Netanyahu."

Following today's report, Harris reiterated this position.  "We admire Secretary Kerry's determined efforts to bring the parties back to the negotiating table, and hope that this new round of talks will indeed bear fruit.  In the end, it is the negotiating table, not the corridors of the United Nations or the EU hallways in Brussels, that is the path to a durable outcome so many of us seek."

SOURCE American Jewish Committee