07 September 2010

Israel’s hardline foreign minister said Monday that his party will try to block any extension of Israel’s settlement slowdown, a move that could derail the recently launched Mideast peace negotiations.

Avigdor Lieberman said the Israeli government must keep its promise to voters that the 10-month slowdown, declared last November under US pressure in order to draw the Palestinians to the negotiating table, will end as scheduled at the end of the month.

The September 26 deadline is a challenge for the fragile talks launched in Washington last week. The Palestinians say they will quit the talks if settlement construction accelerates, but not ending the slowdown could potentially bring down the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to say how he will handle the deadline.

“A promise is a promise,” Lieberman told Israel Radio. “We will not agree to any extension.” “I promise that if there’s a proposal that we don’t accept it will not pass,” he added.

Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party is a key member of Israel’s governing coalition, which is led by Netanyahu’s Likud party.

It holds 15 seats in parliament, making it the second-largest member of the coalition and giving it the ability to rob the government of its parliamentary majority if it pulls out. Other coalition partners, and members of Netanyahu’s own party, also favor resuming construction.

In a sign that compromise was possible, however, Lieberman told the daily Yediot Ahronot that he would not quit the coalition even if he does not get his way.

“We will not leave or bring down the government. We will fight from the inside for what we believe,” he told the paper.

Netanyahu is seeking a way to get through the September 26 deadline without dismantling his coalition, alienating the Palestinians or angering the US administration, which is backing the talks and has invested time and political capital in their success.

Netanyahu has told visiting US congressmen he thinks it could be possible to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians in a year despite huge differences, his spokesman said.

Netanyahu told the visiting delegation that he “believes it possible, through such direct and contiguous negotiations, held without breaks or delays, to achieve a peace agreement within a year”, spokesman Nir Hefez said on Monday.

But in an interview with a Palestinian newspaper, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would not continue the negotiations with Israel if Jewish settlement construction resumed once a temporary hiatus expires on September 26.

“You must know that if you do not continue the settlement halt, we will leave these negotiations,” the Al-Ayyam newspaper quoted Abbas as saying he had told Netanyahu in their talks. “If the freeze is not extended … there will not be any negotiations.”

Netanyahu is slated to meet Abbas for a second round of talks next week in Egypt and Jerusalem. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also scheduled to attend.

About 300,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, among the territory’s some 2.5 million Palestinians. In addition, almost 200,000 Israeli settlers live in occupied East Jerusalem, the section of the holy city claimed by the Palestinians.

The slowdown has cut the construction in the settlements, though the extent of the drop is limited, due to a surge in settler construction permit approvals ahead of its start. All settlements are illegal under international law, and in violation of numerous UN resolutions. – Agencies, with The Daily Star

Copyright The Daily Star 2010.