Netanyahu orders cutback in Palestinian Authority contacts

JERUSALEM: Israel announced on Wednesday a partial freeze in high-level contacts with the Palestinians in retaliation for their signing of international conventions, deepening a crisis that threatens to wreck US-brokered peace talks.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority said Israeli-Palestinian ministerial meetings were rare but voiced concern that the step could be followed by economic sanctions.
Israeli government officials said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered Cabinet members, directors-general of government ministries and other senior officials not to meet their counterparts in the Palestinian Authority.
The order does not apply to Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel’s chief peace negotiator, or to defense and security officials, they said. A US mediator has held a series of meetings over the past week to try to push the troubled talks past an original April 29 deadline for a deal.
“This decision undermines all international efforts ... to revive the negotiations, to proceed with a constructive solution to the challenges facing the peace process,” said PA spokesman Ehab Bseiso.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu had issued the order in response to “the Palestinians’ grave violation of their commitments in the framework of the peace talks” — a reference to the signing of 15 international agreements last week.
The ban was imposed just hours after US Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that Israel’s announcement on April 1 of plans to build about 700 housing units in East Jerusalem was the immediate cause of talks plunging into crisis.