Kerry to Lieberman: I did not blame Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "We are standing up for ourselves with determination and wisdom" • Economy Minister Naftali Bennett: "Settlement blocs must be annexed. ... The time has come to present an alternative to the entire Oslo concept."

Shlomo Cesana, Yoni Hirsch, Lilach Shoval, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Foregin Minister Avigdor Lieberman with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington on Wednesday | Photo credit: GettyImages

If on Tuesday officials in the Prime Minister's Office were still trying to play down comments by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry by saying he had not unequivocally placed the onus on Israel for the crisis in the peace talks with the Palestinians, on Wednesday the tone was different.

First it was a senior Prime Minister's Office official who told The New York Times that Kerry's statements "will both hurt the negotiations and harden Palestinian positions." The official insisted that the Palestinians were to blame for the diplomatic failure, and that the Palestinian Authority "violated their fundamental commitments" by applying last week to join 15 international organizations and conventions.

Credit: Reuters
Kerry, said the Prime Minister's Office official, "knows that it was the Palestinians who said no to continued direct talks with Israel in November; who said no to his proposed framework for final status talks; who said no to even discussing recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people; who said no to a meeting with Kerry himself; and who said no to an extension of the talks."

The official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office continued: "In the understandings reached prior to the talks, Israel did not commit to any limitation on construction. Therefore, the Palestinian claim that building in Jerusalem, Israel's capital, was a violation of the understandings is contrary to the facts. Both the American negotiating team and the Palestinians know full well that Israel made no such commitment."

Netanyahu has thus far refrained from directly opposing Kerry's position, but when he spoke on Wednesday at a conference of Likud activists about the Israelites' exodus from Egypt ahead of the Passover holiday next week, it was difficult not to read between the lines.

"What is the significance of independence?" he asked the crowd. "It is the ability to stand for yourself, it is the ability to say yes and the ability to say no. A slave -- cannot say no. But an independent person and an independent nation can stand up for themselves, and this is what we are doing. We are standing up for ourselves with determination and wisdom."

Strategic Affairs and Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) on Wednesday also addressed the matter at the 3rd Annual International Cyber Security Conference at Tel Aviv University.

"About a month ago we listened to PA President Mahmoud Abbas say he has no intention of recognizing the right of the Jewish people to a sovereign state. There are situations where one must stand firm and present this as a basic demand, full recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. We cannot come to terms with anything else from Abbas."

Meanwhile, Kerry met with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu) in Washington on Wednesday.

"I do not blame Israel for the negotiation crisis with the Palestinians," he told Lieberman, "I only described the unfolding of events and the natural difficulties involved in managing such a complex and sensitive negotiation."

Lieberman, who met earlier with U.S. President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser Susan Rice, responded to Kerry by saying, "We are in favor of continuing the negotiations and Israel has already proven its desire and ability to make peace with Egypt and Jordan. The question is whether the Palestinians also have an honest and real desire to reach an agreement, and not to play the blame game."

Regardless, Israel has signaled that it will not come to terms with the recent Palestinian conduct. Netanyahu on Wednesday issued a directive to cabinet members, directors-general of government ministries and other senior officials not to meet their counterparts in the Palestinian Authority. The orders are to "disengage" from all senior PA officials until further notice. The only cooperation still in place involves the Defense Ministry and various Israel Defense Forces District Coordination and Liaison units.

At IDF District Coordination and Liaison Headquarters soldiers prepared a "punishment package" as a possible response to the PA's application to U.N. bodies. These measures, which have not yet been implemented, include restricting movement and revoking VIP documentation for senior PA officials, and freezing economic projects.

Another punitive Israeli step under consideration was to deduct up to $75 million in tax revenue transfers to the Palestinians and use it to repay debts to the Israel Electric Corporation, Delek Corporation and Israeli hospitals.

Under 1990s interim peace deals, Israel collects and transfers to the PA some $100 million a month in taxes on goods imported into the Palestinian territories. Israel has previously frozen the payments during times of heightened tension.

The U.S. State Department described the Israeli decision to cease all contact with PA officials as "unfortunate."

Habayit Hayehudi leader and Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett sent a letter to Netanyahu on Wednesday, calling on him to end talks with Abbas and to annex the settlement blocs.

"At this time we are witnessing the end of the diplomatic process," Bennett wrote. "The Palestinians have broken a new record for extortion and rejectionism. It is clear that the current process has exhausted itself and that we are entering a new era.

"For years we have repeatedly banged our heads against the wall of negotiations -- and unsurprisingly the wall has not broken. The time has come for new thinking. I ask of you to hold a discussion as soon as possible about an alternate course of action in order to begin applying Israeli sovereignty over the areas in Judea and Samaria that are under Israeli control."

In a conversation with Israel Hayom, Bennett explained: "The settlement blocs must be annexed -- the Ariel bloc, the area around Ben-Gurion airport, the Etzion bloc, the Maaleh Adumim bloc, the Beit El bloc, Ofra and the Jordan Valley. [Menachem] Begin knew to do this in 1981 on the Golan Heights, against world opinion; Eshkol did it in 1967 in Jerusalem, against world opinion. The time has come to present an alternative to the entire Oslo concept."

Yet despite the tense atmosphere, Israeli and Palestinian negotiation delegations were expected to meet Thursday with Kerry's representative Martin Indyk, with the goal of reviving the moribund peace talks.

Abbas on Thursday said he would support an extension of the peace talks beyond the deadline set for the end of April -- if the conditions set by the Palestinians are met.

Speaking to reporters at the end of an Arab League summit in Cairo, Abbas said it would be in the interest of the Palestinians that negotiations continue beyond the deadline, if the talks lead the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with a capital in east Jerusalem. Other Palestinian conditions include basing the borders of a future Palestinian state on the 1967 lines and further prisoner releases by Israel.

Abbas said the Palestinian Authority had no intention of withdrawing the 15 applications it sent to international organizations and conventions last week.