Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed the Palestinians for blocking US-led efforts to revive the peace process in the Middle East. "We continue to see that the Palestinians are hardening their positions. They do not show any sign of moderation," Netanyahu said on Sunday before the weekly meeting of his Cabinet in Jerusalem. His remarks came after the Palestinians reiterated their refusal to hold even indirect talks without a complete settlement freeze.
President Mahmud Abbas had ruled out talks with Israel unless it freezes settlement construction in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem. "We cannot resume indirect negotiations as long as Israel maintains its settlement policy and the status quo," Abbas said at the opening of an Arab League summit in Libya, adding: "There won't be any agreement that does not guarantee an end to the occupation, starting with Jerusalem, because there is no sense in having a Palestinian state that does not have Jerusalem as its capital," he declared.
Netanyahu said the annual meeting was unlikely to support US-led efforts to revive negotiations suspended over a year ago. "I do not think that the discussions by the Arab League can support this process, but we will show restraint and continue our contacts with the Americans in order to restart the talks," he said.
The prime minister said that relations between Israel and the US were those of "allies and friends”, dismissing reports that one of his advisers had called US President Barack Obama a "disaster" for Israel.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak emphasized that Israeli would take crucial decisions alone and not have them imposed from the ouside. “We are the ones who have exclusive responsibility for Israel’s fate and future and only we will decide on issues of national importance that affect Israelis and the Jewish people,” the Labor Party leader said.
Earlier this month, Abbas had reluctantly agreed to US-mediated indirect talks with Israel but the planned negotiations collapsed two days later when Israel’s Interior Ministry announced its approval for a plan to build 1,600 new homes in the Jerusalem suburb of Ramat Shlomo.
Last Friday, some 300 protesters (see picture) rallied in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of east Jerusalem, shouting: "There is nothing holy in an occupied city.” The peace activists protested against the construction permit granted last week to build two dozen apartments on the grounds of the Shepherd Hotel.
