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Meridor: We won't return to '67 lines

Aug. 25, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

"Surely, nobody expects [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu to offer more than what [former prime minister Ehud] Olmert offered [to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas]," Intelligence Affairs Minister Dan Meridor [Likud] told German magazine Der Spiegel in an interview published Tuesday.

Meridor was speaking with the magazine ahead of Netanyahu's visit to Berlin, one of the stops on his European trip this week. In the interview, Meridor detailed the Israeli government's readiness to resume negotiations with the Palestinians, announced by Netanyahu in Sunday's cabinet meeting before of his departure.

Meridor rejected the interviewer's characterization of the current Israeli administration as "hard-line," and pointed out that Abbas currently refuses to negotiate until Israel completely freezes settlement activity, despite the fact that he negotiated with Olmert for three years during the reign of former US president George W. Bush, when Israel's settlement policy was, Meridor said, identical to Netanyahu's.

He also assessed that Abbas's current position was affected by internal issues. "Perhaps [Abbas] reacted the way he did because he doesn't control Gaza, where 40 percent of the territories' population lives and into which he cannot even travel. Perhaps [he] wants even more than just the Palestinian state; but there is nothing more to give," Meridor said.

When confronted with speeches made last week by Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon, who on a recent tour of the West Bank expressed support for the settlers, Meridor countered: "Ours is a big coalition government with diverging views. What you describe is neither the official policy of Prime Minister Netanyahu nor the official policy of the government."

"We haven't built any new settlements, so we are fulfilling the understanding [we've reached with the previous US administration]. Now there are some ongoing discussions about a compromise," Meridor clarified.

Seemingly drawing a line in the sand, Meridor said, "The Old City with the Jewish Quarter and the Wailing Wall will never be part of an Arab state; all the major Israeli parties share this conviction. There could be a compromise on land in Judea and Samaria. But all Israeli governments have agreed on having a united Jerusalem. This is our clear position, but we can negotiate about Jerusalem. There are no preconditions."

"Final borders," the minister added, "are open for discussion. But we will not return to the line of 1967 - that's for sure."

Meridor expressed optimism about the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, saying, "All in all, I am quite optimistic that things in the Middle East will develop in a positive way. There's something in the air."

However, he noted that the introduction of religion into a conflict that was historically defined on nationalistic ideas complicated matters.

"It has become more difficult over the years because of the introduction of religion into this conflict. Arab rulers hated us in the past, but they did so because of nationalistic ideas. Since the [1979] revolution in Teheran, we hear a different tune: The Iranians, Hizbullah and Hamas fight us in the name of religion. This is very bad because people can compromise, but gods never compromise."

But Meridor also insisted that the issue of Jerusalem was not predicated on religion. "The previous pope (John Paul II) said that Jerusalem is sacred to all religions, but was promised to one people. We have no religious claim on Jerusalem; we have a national one. Jerusalem is our capital," he said.

Meridor said that people who believe that both the Palestinians and the Israelis had made peace with the status quo and were not prepared for any more painful compromises were mistaken. "For us, the status quo is a bad option. We need to change it - and take risks," he said, adding that "we must take into account the lessons we've learned from the past."

Moving on to the issue of Iran's nuclear pursuit, Meridor, whose dossier as intelligence affairs minister centers on the Iranian issue, refused to divulge Israel's plans should the international effort to stymie Iran's ambitions fail.

"I don't think the prime minister has made up his mind [whether to attack Iran's nuclear installations militarily]," he said, "but I don't want to get into details..."

"I think Iran shouldn't be allowed to become a nuclear power. This is not only an issue for Israel but for the whole world. It would be a victory for the extremists over the moderates in the Arab world. This worries the moderate Arab countries more than anything else. It would change the equilibrium in the Middle East; it would mean the end of the [Nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty; it would be a serious threat for us.

"One shouldn't forget that Iranian President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad has repeatedly spoken about the illegitimacy of Israel, and its destruction. But we should concentrate now on harsher sanctions against Teheran, with America leading the way. And we are counting on the Europeans to follow with serious actions. This includes Germany, which is one of Iran's very important trading partners," the minister said.

Asked whether Israel would attack Iran on its own or ask for US consent, he said "I don't want to go into this. But we all see the clock ticking - and Netanyahu knows what he's doing."

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'Barak promised to remove outposts'

Aug. 25, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

Labor faction chair MK Daniel Ben-Simon on Tuesday seemed to give an ultimatum to party leader Ehud Barak on the matter of unauthorized outposts in the West Bank. He said that the Labor party would reconsider continuing to sit in the coalition if evacuation of 24 West Bank outposts constructed after March 2001 is not accelerated.

Speaking to Army Radio, Ben-Simon explained that he had been given a guarantee from Barak that the outposts would be removed before the next Knesset session opens, in some two months time.

He added that to the best of Barak's knowledge, a plan for the removal was being formulated.

"I'll request a discussion, or I'll make Barak give us an answer," he told Army Radio. He questioned whether Labor was sitting in the government because of obligation, or because "it has to fulfill a conscientious, moral, political role."

"What's for sure," he added, "is that the outposts go against [such a role.]"

Ben-Simon also said that the Labor party has "nothing to gain from sitting in a coalition which is actually moving to the Right - morally, we won't be able to look our constituents in the eyes."

Earlier in the day, during a Peace Now tour of outposts in the Samaria and Binyamin regions, the faction chair called the outposts a "disgrace" which have to be removed immediately. "If the government doesn't abide by its commitment on this issue, we should leave," he said.

The cabinet has authorized the removal of the 24 outposts, but to date no action has been taken.

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PM: Israel won't give up J'lem sovereignty

Aug. 24, 2009
Herb Keinon, traveling with the prime minister, LONDON , THE JERUSALEM POST

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu arrived in London on Monday for two days of meetings with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US Mideast mediator George Mitchell, making clear that he will not allow anyone to question Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem.

Britain, along with the rest of the EU and the US, was highly critical recently of both the approval of plans to build a compound of Jewish homes at the site of the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah, and also the eviction of two Palestinian families from Jewish-owned property in the same east Jerusalem neighborhood.

This issue is expected to come up both in Netanyahu's talks with Brown on Tuesday, and in his meeting with Mitchell on Wednesday morning.

A senior source in the Prime Minister's Office said on Netanyahu's plane before taking off that Israel would not accept any limitations on its sovereignty in the capital.

Likewise, the official said the prime minister would continue to insist in his talks with Mitchell - in a meeting that will deal with how to get Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiation table - that normal life in the settlements continue to be accommodated.

In Israel's diplomatic lexicon, "normal life in the settlements" has replaced "natural growth" to refer to the type of building Israel wants to continue beyond the Green Line.

Officials in Netanyahu's entourage continued to lower expectations in advance of the Mitchell encounter, saying that although there has been a degree of progress in the discussions leading up to the meeting, a "breakthrough" was not expected.

The US and Israel have been wrangling for weeks about the nature of a settlement freeze that US President Barack Obama called for in the early days of his presidency, and which the Palestinians have now made a condition for restarting negotiations.

In addition to trying to get Israel to announce some kind of moratorium on the settlements, the US has also been trying - so far to no avail - to win normalization gestures from the Arab world.

In Washington, the State Department said on Monday that Mitchell is getting closer to winning agreement by the Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace talks.

Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters that Wednesday's talks between Mitchell and Netanyahu will not necessarily produce a breakthrough.

But Kelly said the process of laying the groundwork for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was moving closer to fruition. Pressed to explain what had moved the process forward, he declined to offer any details.

Netanyahu said at Sunday's cabinet meeting that he expected that talks with the Palestinians would begin again at the end of September. Officials in his office, however, would not reveal the source of his optimism - regarding either the details of a possible settlement freeze, or what gestures the Arab world was considering.

While the Mitchell meeting and the Palestinian issue has dominated the discussion in the media prior to the prime minister's visit, Iran is likely to take up as much time during his meetings with Brown on Tuesday and with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday.

Sources in the Prime Minister's Office said Netanyahu would tell both leaders that there was now a need to apply "maximum" pressure on Iran to get it to stop its nuclear program. On Sunday evening, prior to flying to London, he spoke with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and relayed a similar message.

This is Netanyahu's third visit overseas since taking office on March 31, following visits to the US, and then to France and Italy. He has also made day trips to meet with President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and King Abdullah in Jordan.

Immediately after landing, Netanyahu went for a meeting with a number of senior members of the British press. On Tuesday, before meeting Brown, he is scheduled to speak with leaders of the Jewish community. A joint press conference is scheduled after the Brown meeting.

Netanyahu is accompanied by his wife, Sarah, as well as his senior staff: National Security Adviser Uzi Arad, Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser, Director of Policy Planning Ron Dermer, Military Attache Meir Kalifi, Chief of Staff Natan Eshel and spokesman Nir Hefetz.

AP contributed to this report.•

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