RAMALLAH, West Bank, 15 January 2008 — The hawkish Israeli Minister of Strategic, Affaires Avigdor Lieberman, is preparing to resign from the government tomorrow in protest against the relaunched peace talks on the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to Israeli sources, Lieberman, who also serves as vice premier and chairman of the rightist Yisrael Beiteinu party, will hold a press conference tomorrow to announce his decision.
Lieberman will convene the Yisrael Beiteinu secretariat this evening, following a meeting earlier in the day with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He returned Sunday evening from a private weekend trip to Europe, which caused him to miss the weekly Cabinet meeting.
His stance on the coalition, which had reportedly softened recently, hardened again after hearing of Olmert’s declarations during the meeting that Israel’s failure to evacuate West Bank outposts constitutes a disgrace.
The meeting between Olmert and Lieberman was scheduled after the latter asked for clarifications from Olmert last week regarding reports of the start of talks on the core issues — Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, borders, security and water resources.
However, sources close to Olmert say that the prime minister has no intention of pushing Lieberman out of the coalition. They say that there is an understanding between Lieberman and Olmert that so long as no action on the ground is taken, Yisrael Beiteinu will remain in the coalition.
Meanwhile, Israeli negotiation team headed by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and the Palestinian team led by chief negotiator Ahmed Qorei yesterday started talks on the core issues. The Jerusalem meeting follows an announcement by Olmert and Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas just prior to US President George W. Bush’s visit last week that the two sides would commence core issue talks immediately.
During his speech in Ramallah on Sunday, Abbas said discussions would begin on the six issues. “If we reach an agreement on all these issues, then we can say that we have reached a final agreement,” Abbas said, stressing that a peace treaty must resolve disputes over all the issues.
Abbas’ announcement came three days after US President George W. Bush ended a three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Friday. Bush, who will leave the White House in January of 2009, said during the visit that Israel and the Palestinians would reach an agreement by the end of 2008, as they had agreed to do at the Annapolis peace conference in November.
Israel and the PA launched negotiations on Dec. 12 in the wake of the Annapolis conference but several rounds of peace talks since then failed to yield any tangible progress mainly due to the disputed settlement activities.
In response, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement that “the meeting (between Qorei and Livni) is doomed to fail amid the ongoing Zionist crimes against our people, and the stubborn Zionist policy.” Hamas, which rejects to recognize the state of Israel or the signed agreements, had ousted Abbas security forces and took control of the entire Gaza Strip in mid June.
In a related development, Israeli sources said that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has reached an agreement with leaders of the settlement movement in the West Bank for the peaceful evacuation of 18 settlement outposts. Barak’s office says the negotiations involved 26 outposts, which were set up since March, 2001. Israel has consented to evacuate them as set out in the US-backed road map plan.
Sources close to the defense minister said Barak had on three occasions presented Olmert with a compromise for the consensual eviction of 18 of the outposts.
