Netanyahu said his Cabinet declared the slowdown to
encourage Palestinians to negotiate with Israel directly, instead of through a
US mediator, and that after stalling for more than seven months the
Palestinians were now asking for more time.
“This is unacceptable. The decision is limited in time.
This has not changed and that’s how it will be,” Netanyahu
told an Israeli parliamentary committee, according to a meeting participant who
spoke on condition of anonymity because the session was closed.
Palestinians oppose Jewish construction in areas where they
hope to build their future state and have refused to resume direct peace talks
with Israel until settlement construction halts completely. About 300,000
Jewish settlers live among some 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank.
Netanyahu’s comments could be aimed at pressuring
Palestinians to resume the direct talks, which broke off in December 2008 under
his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, shortly before Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers
waged a three-week war. He could also be hoping to assuage the concerns of his
hawkish, pro-settler coalition partners.
Netanyahu also told Parliament’s powerful Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee that Israel is ready to launch direct talks with the
Palestinians as early as next week. He accused the Palestinian leadership of
dodging the talks, which he said were the only way to resolve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He said that he and President Barack Obama were in agreement
on the need for direct talks.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been reluctant to
proceed from the current US-mediated talks to direct negotiations. He is
skeptical of Netanyahu’s commitment to peacemaking and wants more assurances
from the US that progress will be made.
“The problem is not in the form of the talks, it is in the
substance,” said Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian government spokesman. “Israel is
responsible for the deadlock in talks because they are choosing to determine
the future by settlement activity rather than by negotiations.” Khatib also
charged that Israel has shown a “lack of seriousness” in the current phase of
indirect talks that did not inspire faith on the Palestinian side. The two
sides began negotiating through an American envoy in early May.
Also Monday, Israeli settlers entered a Palestinian village,
set fire to a field, tried to tear down an unfinished house and attacked
villagers, residents said, in an apparent response to the demolition of illegal
settler buildings earlier in the day by Israeli authorities.
The two sides began hurling rocks at each other, injuring 10
people, including one settler who was seriously hurt, Palestinian witnesses and
Israeli police said.
Extremist settlers often respond to the demolition of their
unauthorized construction by attacking Palestinians and their property, a
policy they call “price tag.” AP Television News footage showed villagers
trying to extinguish the fire in the field in the northern West Bank village of
Burin.
The Israeli military, which controls the West Bank, arrived
on the scene and separated the sides. No shots were fired.
