By GIL HOFFMAN, JPOST
American mediators have been trying to broker an agreement in which Israel releases a fourth round of Palestinian prisoners.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu speaks to the cabinet,
Efforts to reach an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on extending talks hit a snag on Thursday when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lost his majority for such a deal.
American mediators have been trying to broker an agreement in which Israel releases a fourth round of Palestinian prisoners. As a gesture to Israel for releasing Israeli Arabs as part of the deal, the US intended to commute the life sentence of Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard.
The deal had a majority among the 23 members of the cabinet, thanks to support from Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, all of the Likud, five ministers from Yesh Atid, two from Hatnua and two from Yisrael Beytenu.
But Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch of Yisrael Beytenu surprised Netanyahu’s associates when he told Army Radio that he opposes extending the negotiations if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas does not publicly condemn Monday’s terrorist attack that killed senior police officer Baruch Mizrachi.
Abbas condemned the attack privately in a meeting with leftwing MKs in Ramallah on Wednesday. But he refused to come out to waiting Israeli journalists who accompanied the legislators.
“If Abu Mazen [Abbas] does not condemn the attack fiercely in Arabic, there is no point in continuing the talks,” said Aharonovitch, whose vote would be crucial to pass the deal.
Multiple Likud ministers are said to be wavering over whether to support the deal. A group of Likud mayors in Judea and Samaria wrote the party’s ministers on Thursday urging them to oppose the agreement.
“We call upon you to declare that more murderers and terrorists will not be freed and there will be no more talks with the Palestinian Authority, which has proven that it supports, organizes and funds terrorism,” the mayors wrote the ministers in a letter.
Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett has threatened to remove his party from Netanyahu’s coalition if Israeli- Arab prisoners are released in the deal.
Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman said he would vote against it but he would give Aharonovitch and Immigration and Absorption Minister Sofa Landver the right to vote in favor.
Meanwhile, a Ma’agar Mohot poll broadcast on Channel 10 on Thursday found that if Liberman ran on a ticket with former communications minister Moshe Kahlon, the party would win 22 seats and beat the Likud, which would win 19, and Labor, which would win 18.
Kahlon said in an interview with Yediot Aharonot last week that he would return to politics but he did not know with which party. He was critical of the Likud, of which he remains a member, and complimentary of Liberman.
In a separate interview with the newspaper, Liberman praised Kahlon’s accomplishments and welcomed his comeback.
Netanyahu has been no better than a lap dog for Obama. Every time Obama holds up a hoop Netanyahu jumps through it. Stop construction. Yes Massa. Release 100 terrorist murders. Yes Massa. Agreed Obama wants to weaken destroy Israel and he’s found a willing accomplice in Netanyahu. The left can’t be any worse than this present government.
@ beniyyar:
Netanyahu will surrender as he has done forever and a day. There never was any worth there and it is all.
While you all celebrate the weakening of the Netanyahu government just keep in mind that this is exactly what Obama and his lap dog Kerry want, to destroy the Netanyahu government and try to put in a Left wing Labor government. But mostly Obama wants to weaken and ultimately get rid of Israel, and the right wing fanatics like Feiglin and Bennet are helping Obama every chance they get.
yamit82 Said:
It’s a mistake to compare politicians to prostitutes,who at least have some integrity. Politicians have none.
@ Steve Goldberg:
Because they are all political whores, every one.
Bear Klein Said:
Nobody wants new elections and most of the threats are pure domestic political posturing and that includes Bennett.
They will find a formula where the opposition can climb down from their threats and agree to let BB continue with his present course of appeasement. The only ones who won’t bend seems to be Abbas and Obama.
@ Steve Goldberg:
If the article is accurate you are correct. So often these articles of who stands where are off base.
It is appalling that anyone is even considering making such an arrangement. It’s well known that Steinitz is Netanyahu’s poodle, but what in the world is Bogie Ya’alon thinking? How are the other Likud Ministers even undecided?
Ted, why can you not make the comments look exactly the way we see them when we are composing or editing them. which is precisely the way they appeared on Israpundit until somebody decided to reinvent your wheel?
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English-language text should in fact be shown flush left. But all that simultaneous flush-left and flush-right accomplishes is to make the text harder to read. Also, horizontal spaces between paragraphs have a real purpose, the satisfaction of which should not depend on your commenters adding printable non-alphabetical characters between the paragraphs in order to provide some degree of separation.
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Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Hopefully no more deals let terrorists out of prison will occur!
So Israel will not agree to another installment of surrender to Fatah by means of their revolving-door security prisons. For that I shall clap one hand in mild applause.
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Because prisoner releases is nothing more than a sideshow, peripheral to the main event. And the main event is the question of to whom Areztz Yisrael shall belong: The Jewish nation or the Arabs?
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No two-state solution ever has been possible in a country the size of the New Jersey plus Rhode Island and possibly Delaware tossed into the pot. (It wouldn’t have worked in the USA either, if those three of the original British North American colonies had not all been founded by English-speaking predominantly Protestant Christians who were all united in being pissed off by the perceived inequities of rule from an island more than 3000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.)
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Unless and until a government coalition sufficiently grounded in true Jewish nationalism can get elected and annex Shomron and Yehuda — starting minimally with Area C supplemented with key parts of Area B — it will be assumed by the world that the Jews — as usual — are too timid to do more than talk a strong line of shit but never act upon it for the sake of Zion.
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Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Israel is suppose to ‘turn a blind eye’ to terror attacks and truly consider releasing 400 savages back into society as part of a ‘so called deal’? BB, some people who smoke crack make better sense than you!!
Is this his only reason to oppose the deal? sounds like a feint to me: focusing on a triviality as opposed to the major failings. Is he saying that if Abbas makes a public meaningless statement then he will vote for the deal? reminds of BB’s demand for recognition while ignoring the Jewish rights of settlement. Perhaps Aharonovitch wants to appear opposed, to the deal, to his constituency while ending up voting for the deal.
“The problem is the PLO is unwilling to provide Israel even with a fig leaf to allow the “peace process” to limp on.””
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Thank G-d for that! Enough of the unilateral concessions. We’ve ALL had it with the GOI capitulation to these thugs.
The “peace process” has now degenerated into a farce. Israel is trying to “negotiate” with the PLO terrorists an Israeli surrender on the least humiliating terms possible. For the Israeli government, the problem is the PLO is unwilling to provide Israel even with a fig leaf to allow the “peace process” to limp on.
I will be very surprised if a breakthrough is reached by the end of the month.