Netanyahu blames US for peace talks failure

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, claims that he was ready to extend a settlement freeze in the West Bank but the US changed its mind.

TEL AVIV // Benjamin Netanyahu claimed yesterday that he had been ready to extend a settlement freeze in the West Bank but the US changed its mind.

The Israeli prime minister blamed Washington for backing out of its own deal for Israel to halt building for another three months in exchange for diplomatic and security incentives and military hardware from the US.

"At the end of the day, the United States decided not to go in that direction … and moved on to outlining talks on closing gaps, so that the core issues can be discussed," Mr Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

The Israeli premier also claimed he had told the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, that he could win Israeli cabinet approval for the freeze, but received a "surprising phone call" from the Americans telling him they were no longer interested in the deal.

Mr Netanyahu has been accused of intentionally sabotaging peace talks with the Palestinians to satisfy the ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious parties that form the majority of his government coalition. Blaming his closest international ally for their collapse appears to be an attempt to divert those accusations.

The direct negotiations were suspended only three weeks after they re-started on September 2 last year, after Israel rejected a Palestinian demand to renew the expired settlement freeze in both the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The previous moratorium took effect only in the West Bank.

While the Israeli premier has silenced critics inside his own party and other right-wingers in his coalition who had opposed a further settlement freeze, he may be about to lose the only centrist partner in his government.

Binyamin-Ben Eliezer, infrastructure minister and a senior member of the Labour party, said yesterday that Labour would pull out of the government within two months if there were no progress in peace talks.

Mr Netanyahu would retain a slim parliamentary majority in his coalition without Labour's 15 legislators, but he is likely to lose support from the US and other western countries that have expressed concern about his coalition's right-wing leanings.

Binyamin-Ben Eliezer, the infrastructure minister and a senior member of the Labour party, said yesterday that Labour would pull out of the government within two months if there were no progress in peace talks.

Mr Netanyahu would retain a slim parliamentary majority in his coalition without Labour’s 15 legislators, but he is likely to lose support from the US and other western countries that have expressed concern about his coalition’s right-wing leanings.

“If I see real movement … in the next month and a half or two months, an entry into negotiations, talks, sitting down, in teams, talking about the core issues, whether it be security arrangements, borders, refugees, East Jerusalem, everything, then the Labour party will continue to offer support,” Mr Ben-Eliezer said. “If not, we will be out.”

Mr Netanyahu also said yesterday that senior US officials, including Dennis Ross, special adviser for the Gulf and southwest Asia, will return to the Middle East this week to try to salvage the peace process. Mr Netanyahu also plans to hold talks in Egypt on Thursday with Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president.

Ben Caspit, leading political correspondent for Israel’s mass-selling Maariv newspaper, reported yesterday that Israeli officials including Mr Netanyahu had repeatedly rejected documents that their Palestinian counterparts have tried to submit to them on the negotiations. The documents detailed the Palestinian positions on all the core issues, which include the future of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the future borders of a Palestinian state.

“The Israeli representatives are completely unwilling to discuss, read or touch these documents, not to speak of submitting an equivalent Israeli document with the Israeli positions,” Mr Caspit wrote. The Israeli commentator gave as an example a recent meeting in Mr Netanyahu’s official Jerusalem residence with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. Mr Netanyahu refused to read or discuss a two-page document brought by Mr Abbas, which outlined a Palestinian proposal for resolving the two main issues that were to be discussed during the first stage of the direct talks – security arrangements and borders in the future Palestinian state.

In a US-mediated meeting weeks ago in Washington between Saeb Erekat and Yitzhak Molcho, the Palestinian and Israeli negotiators, Mr Erekat surprised Mr Molcho by handing him a booklet with the updated Palestinian stances on all the core issues, Maariv said.

Mr Molcho refused to take the booklet, telling Mr Erekat that if he did then the Israeli “government will fall”, according to the report, which seemed to contradict Mr Netanyahu’s official stance that he is ready to discuss openly all the core issues.

As recently as Sunday, Mr Netanyahu said he was prepared to sit with Mr Abbas for “continuous direct one-on-one negotiations until white smoke is wafting”.

“If Abu Mazen agrees to my proposal of directly discussing all the core issues, we will know very quickly if we can reach an agreement,” he said.