Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said at an Israel Beiteinu faction meeting on
Monday that Israel will not make any additional compromises or concessions to
the Palestinians in peace talks.
“The ball is in the Palestinians’
court,” he quipped.
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Lieberman said that the current government took a
number of clear steps in the two and a half years it has been in power. He also
noted that Israel Beiteinu accepted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Bar-
Ilan speech and that the government had agreed to the Quartet’s
stance.
Unlike the Palestinians, whom Lieberman slammed for rejecting a
recent set of Quartet parameters for restarting peace talks, Israel reacted
immediately to the proposal and said it was ready for direct
negotiations.
Lieberman added that the Palestinians waited until an
excuse – continued construction in Gilo – presented itself days later and then
refused to negotiate.
The foreign minister used this as an example of the
many times in which he said the international community was not balanced in its
examining of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinian leadership
“spoke with former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert without
demanding a settlement freeze,” he said, asserting that the PA leaders should do
the same with the current government.
Addressing the recent rocket fire
from Gaza that killed one person, the foreign minister said that the only
solution was to end Hamas’s rule over the strip.
“The goal of the State
of Israel should be to take down the Hamas regime in Gaza,” he said.