Israel Warns Palestinians but Leaves Way Open for Talks
JERUSALEM
— Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Sunday that Israel would
take its own “unilateral steps” in response to the Palestinians’ move last week
to join international conventions and reiterated that a Palestinian
state could be created “only through direct negotiations, not through
empty statements and not by unilateral moves.”
The
Palestinians say they took the contentious step only because Israel
failed to release a promised group of long-serving prisoners by the end
of March, breaking its own commitment as part of the negotiations.
It was Mr. Netanyahu’s first public statement about the peace process since last week’s crisis, which left the American-brokered negotiations
on the brink of collapse, and came as the lead Israeli and Palestinian
negotiators were expected to meet Sunday with Martin Indyk, the Obama
administration’s special envoy for the talks.
While
the prime minister was clearly trying to lay blame for the possible
collapse on his counterpart, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian
Authority, he, like other leaders who spoke over the past several days,
left open a window for salvaging the talks before their current April 29
expiration date.
Mr.
Netanyahu did not specify what “unilateral steps” Israel might employ,
though local news outlets have reported that the country is preparing to
block a mobile-phone company from entering the Gaza Strip and providing
3G service in the West Bank, and to cancel plans for some development
projects in the West Bank.
“We
are ready to continue the talks, but not at any price,” Mr. Netanyahu
said at the start of Israel’s weekly cabinet meeting. “The Palestinians
substantially violated in a significant way the understandings that were
reached with American involvement. The Palestinian threats to appeal to
the U.N. will not affect us — the Palestinians have much to lose from
this unilateral move.”
Israeli leaders attribute the crisis to Mr. Abbas’s signing Tuesday night
of documents seeking membership in 15 international treaties and
conventions, something he had promised not to do during the nine-month
term of the talks Secretary of State John Kerry started last summer.
But
the Palestinians say their move, which leveraged the nonmember
observer-state status they won at the United Nations in 2012, only
because the prisoner release did not occur on time.
“The release of prisoners
is part of an agreement, and no compromise can be accepted,” Yasser
Abed Rabbo, a close aide to Mr. Abbas and officer of the Palestine
Liberation Organization’s executive committee, said Sunday on the Voice
of Palestine radio station. “This is a basic issue for us. Israel
continues with its practices withdrawing all agreement, and at the same
time it does not want to commit to any agreed-about standards.”
Such finger-pointing was not just between the parties to the talks. It also broke out within Israel’s cabinet, where there are deep divisions on the Palestinian question.
Tzipi
Livni, the justice minister, who has been leading the negotiations for
the Israelis, accused the housing minister, Uri Ariel, of deliberately
sabotaging the process by publishing tenders for 700 new apartments in
Gilo, a Jewish area of East Jerusalem, on Tuesday, even as Mr. Netanyahu
was preparing to convene the cabinet to discuss a new deal to extend
negotiations. Palestinians say the Gilo announcement contributed to Mr.
Abbas’s decision to sign the documents joining international
conventions.
“The
entire Jewish Home and Uri Ariel, first and foremost, have only been
waiting for an opportunity to continue to build, to make more
statements, to bring the world down on our heads and prevent us from
reaching an arrangement,” Ms. Livni said, referring to Mr. Ariel’s
right-wing faction, in an Israeli television interview broadcast
Saturday night.
“That
is the price of the presence of having Uri Ariel and the Jewish Home in
the government,” she added. “I didn’t want them there, and they’re
permanent damage.”
Mr.
Ariel called Ms. Livni “insolent” in a radio interview Sunday morning,
and said the tenders were unconnected to the negotiations and meant to
help ease Israel’s housing crisis. “The joke is on Minister Livni, who
received unlimited credit to make peace,” Mr. Ariel said, “and failed
completely. Now she’s looking for someone to blame other than herself.”
Mr. Netanyahu, in his cabinet remarks, echoed Ms. Livni’s statements that Israel had been about to approve a deal for extending the talks
into 2015 when Mr. Abbas acted. The deal was to include Israel’s
release of the prisoners originally promised by the end of March plus
400 others and “restraint” on West Bank settlement construction, in
exchange for the Obama administration’s freeing Jonathan J. Pollard,
the former Navy intelligence officer convicted of spying for Israel,
and a continued Palestinian commitment not to pursue membership in
United Nations bodies.
“During
these talks we carried out difficult steps and showed a willingness to
continue implementing moves that were not easy – in the coming months as
well – in order to create a framework that would allow for putting an
end to the conflict between us,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
“Just
as we were about to enter into that framework for the continuation of
the negotiations, Abu Mazen hastened to declare that he is not prepared
even to discuss recognizing Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish
people,” he added, using Mr. Abbas’s nickname. “To my regret, as we
reached the moment before agreeing on the continuation of the talks, the
Palestinian leadership hastened to unilaterally request to accede” to
international conventions.
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