Netanyahu to Ministers: Stop Contact with P.A.
JERUSALEM, Israel -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked his ministers to discontinue high-level contacts with Palestinian Authority officials outside of security-related issues.
An Israeli government official speaking on condition of anonymity says lower-level contacts will continue.
The move is in response to the P.A.'s decision to apply for membership in 15 international organizations.
Israel holds the P.A. responsible for the current disarray in the U.S.-brokered talks.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio the Palestinians are uninterested in reaching an agreement.
"The truth must be told. The Palestinians in general and [P.A. leader Mahmoud] Abbas in particular are not interested in reaching an agreement. We saw this previously as well," Lieberman said.
"You can also ask [Justice Minister] Tzipi Livni, who was there at [U.S.-sponsored international summit] Annapolis and knows every detail of what happened. We cannot take the blame," he said.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon told reporters on the sidelines of a Golani Brigades exercise in the north that he's a "realist," and not a "prophet of doom."
"Unfortunately, on this issue I find myself saying repeatedly, 'I told you so.' I wish the situation were different," the defense minister said. "Every time, the Palestinians run away and try to blame us. On Passover, we need to free ourselves from mental enslavement to irrelevant concepts on the Israeli-Palestinian matter."
