Mofaz: Freeze was ‘strategic mistake’

New Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee head will try to sell his interim deal plan in DC

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
mofaz good 224 88 (photo credit: Defense Ministry )
mofaz good 224 88
(photo credit: Defense Ministry )
The United States erred by seeking construction freezes in Judea and Samaria and made it harder to advance future peace processes with the Palestinians and the Syrians, new Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee head Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday, in an exclusive interview for www.jpost.com’s new Premium section.
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Mofaz said openly what officials in Netanyahu’s administration have been careful only to say privately: that the approach of US President Barack Obama’s administration to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was doomed from the start and must be retooled.
“The moratorium was a strategic mistake,” Mofaz said.
“It was the first time Israel agreed to a precondition for negotiations. It set a bad precedent for the future. Now, in future negotiations, the Palestinians and Syria will insist on preconditions.”
Mofaz said it was important to get the peace process moving, warning that radicals were getting ready for more violence if the diplomatic stalemate continued. He commended the Obama administration for abandoning its efforts to seek another moratorium, which he said even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas did not believe was necessary.
“The American administration and President Obama need the negotiations to be the main issue and not the moratorium,” he said. “The moratorium became the issue, not the diplomatic process. The two sides need to talk without preconditions. Everyone deserves blame for what went wrong. Abu Mazen [Abbas] himself said on Israeli TV that it was the US that asked for a moratorium and not him. It was an Israeli and American mistake.”
Mofaz left Thursday for Washington, where he will be speaking at the Saban Forum and meeting with Dennis Ross and other top American officials.
He will use the opportunity to try to sell his diplomatic plan, which calls for forming a Palestinian state with interim borders in 60 percent of the West Bank while beginning negotiations on the borders of the final 40%.
“An interim agreement should be the first step toward a permanent agreement,” he said. “The first issues decided should be borders and security arrangements.
If we move forward on that, it can change the atmosphere and the attitude of the international community to Israel. We can then build both economies and the structure for a permanent agreement.”
Mofaz said American, European, and privately even Palestinian officials had adopted his plan, because they saw it as a practical solution and because giving control over most of the West Bank to Abbas could strengthen him against the influences of Hamas and Iran.
“If we continue to wait, we will see Hamas gain more and more power, and one day they will control the West Bank,” he warned. “If Abu Mazen doesn’t bring an agreement, it will be hard for the Palestinian Authority to be strong. If the Palestinians have a state, they will be stronger at the negotiating table and it will be easier to reach a deal with them on the core issues.”
Despite Kadima leader Tzipi Livni’s vocal criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Mofaz said he still believed a national-unity government was possible if Netanyahu took steps to change the guidelines of his coalition and advance the diplomatic process.
He reiterated his intention to challenge Livni for the Kadima leadership and be the party’s candidate for prime minister in the next general election.
“When election time comes, I will prepare myself and I will be ready to run for prime minister,” he said. “I think I have a good chance to win due to my experience and all the posts I have held. My goal is to be elected as prime minister of Israel, and I think this [accomplishment] is very close.”