'Anyone Who Sees Israel as a Catastrophe does not Want Peace'

by Shlomo Cesana, Mati Tuchfeld, Yoni Hirsch and Israel Hayom Staff

PM decries Palestinian incitement at cabinet meeting • Justice Minister Tzipi Livni meets with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in London on her own initiative • U.S. envoy Martin Indyk reportedly slams Israel for failure of talks.

U.S. envoy Martin Indyk

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Photo credit: AP

 

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a 2011 meeting in Amman Photo credit: AFP

"Anyone who views the establishment of Israel as a catastrophe does not want peace," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday, days after Palestinians observed "Nakba Day" ("Day of Catastrophe"), the annual day commemorating the displacement around the Israeli declaration of independence in 1948.

Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu cited a recent Anti-Defamation League report on anti-Semitism, focusing on the prevalence of anti-Israel sentiment within the Palestinian Authority, as reflected in the report.

"The report reveals that anti-Semitism is highest in the Palestinian Authority," Netanyahu said.

"This unfortunate fact is the result of incessant incitement by the Palestinian Authority, distorting the image of Israel and the image of the Jewish people, as we have seen in other places in the past.

"This is also reflected in the fact that they stage processions, but to what they call 'Nakba' -- they regard the existence and establishment of the State of Israel as a catastrophe, and that must be corrected.

"This also manifests itself in the fact that the Palestinians are allowing Hamas, who openly call for our destruction, more and more freedom to act in Judea and Samaria." 

'At Abbas meeting, Livni represented only herself'

Meanwhile, following Justice Minister and Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni's meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in London on Thursday, Israeli officials were quick to criticize her and distance themselves from the incident. But did Livni (Hatnuah) violate the Israeli government's decision to suspend talks with Abbas until the fate of the Fatah-Hamas unity deal becomes clear?

What is known is that Livni, Israel's chief diplomatic negotiator, held a secret meeting with Abbas on Thursday in London, without the knowledge of other top Israeli government leaders.

Livni traveled to London last week to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Abbas was also in London and met with Kerry, but there were no official plans for a three-way meeting or a Livni-Abbas sitdown. According to a political source, Netanyahu learned of Livni's intent to meet with Abbas not from Livni herself, but from another political official. Netanyahu spoke with Livni and distanced himself from her initiative, but did not demand that she cancel the meeting.

"Netanyahu clarified to Livni before her meeting with Abbas that she would be representing only herself, not the Israeli government. The prime minister explained to Livni that Israel's position, as decided by the cabinet, is that it will not conduct negotiations with a Palestinian government backed by Hamas," a Prime Minister's Office official said.

On Channel 2's "Meet the Press" program on Saturday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu) said, "It is true that Livni met with Abbas, but this was not a negotiations meeting. She can hold private meetings with whomever she wants. Even if she played checkers, that's her right."
 

Livni's office declined to comment on the matter.

The Habayit Hayehudi party attacked Livni, saying in a statement, "With her latest meetings, she has finally turned into a satellite that has lost all contact with Earth. If it is hard for her to accept government decisions, then the door for her to leave is open."

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Labor) said, "I find it hard to understand what people like Tzipi Livni are looking for in a government in which, according to the foreign minister, their role is to play checkers. They must leave this government of paralysis."

Meanwhile, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Friday that U.S. special envoy Martin Indyk was recently heard at the bar at Washington's Ritz-Carlton hotel putting full blame on Israel for the failure of the recent peace talks.

According to the source who reportedly overheard the conversation, Indyk and members of his staff "openly blamed" Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett and other right-wing Israeli officials for "sabotaging the [peace] negotiations" by issuing permits for new settlement construction.

"The tone was nasty," the source was quoted as saying.

"In the 30-minute conversation, no one at the table mentioned a single wrong thing the Palestinians had done," the source said. "There was no self-criticism whatsoever."

Indyk declined to comment of the report, and a State Department spokeswoman said, "What you've heard is categorically false. It didn’t happen, period."

On Sunday morning, Habayit Hayehudi MK Ayelet Shaked told Army Radio that Indyk has never been an "honest broker."

"Already in the 1990s, it was clear that Indyk was not a honest broker," Shaked said. "The prime minister never trusted him, but agreed to Kerry's request that he mediate."

On Thursday, The New York Times quoted a senior American government official as saying that U.S. President Barack Obama had decided to take a break from the Israeli-Palestinian peace process "to let the failure of the talks sink in for both parties, and see if that causes them to reconsider."

According to the report, Obama believes that, more than any other factor, Israeli settlement construction announcements doomed the talks.

"At every juncture, there was a settlement announcement," the anonymous U.S. official was quoted as saying. "It was the thing that kept throwing a wrench in the gears."

 

Shlomo Cesana, Mati Tuchfeld, Yoni Hirsch and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=17571

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