Livni blasts Mofaz call for Hamas talks as 'dangerous'
Opposition leader says only solution to conflict is for moderate parties to return to negotiating table.
By Haaretz Service Tags: Israel news Middle East peaceThe opposition leader and Kadima chairwoman, Tzipi Livni, on Monday denounced a proposal by her former party leadership rival, Shaul Mofaz, to talk to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
"I believe that any direct or indirect dialogue with Hamas is dangerous for Israel," Livni said at a meeting of Kadima lawmakers.
Last week, Mofaz unveiled a plan that includes negotiations with Hamas, against which Israel waged its 3-week winter campaign, and an interim Palestinian state on 60 percent of the West Bank in a year.
With regard to the stalled negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, Livni said: "We are currently witnessing two leaders on both sides who are busy threatening one another, or threatening to take unilateral action, and then waiting for the other side to respond."
Livni said that the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was for the moderate parties on both sides to sit down at the negotiating table.
"We started with this, we negotiated with the same moderate parties that agree on the principle of a two-state solution, and we should do it again," said the opposition leader.
Livni detailed negotiations she conducted with the PA while she served as foreign minister during Ehud Olmert's premiership. She said the talks never reached a dead end but rather came to a halt due to "internal political developments."
"Israel's interest is to return to the negotiating table, to end the conflict and to stop threatening to take unilateral steps in order to show our strength," she concluded.
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Israel knew that in 1948. Hamas is correct: resistance is the only tool the Palestinians possess. NO ONE IS COMING TO HELP the Palestinians sustain their border claim. The Americans simply won't allow that, and the Israelis are determined to have it all.
I don't undestand.Israel has to go back to the 67 borders and a Palestinian state will arise in this lands and during 20 years will be a cease fire. And after 20 years?You call that peace? It's just a cease fire that endangers the capability of Israel to protect itself.Peace means negotiations without preconditions and a viable Palestinian state in the economic sense with borders agreed by negotiations.
... Mofaz by no means my cup-of-tea, but he is trying to break a deadlock...
Peace is not a two person null sum game. The only way to get a lasting peace is to talk and search for a common interest.
even cares or values what they say or think.
At least Bibi and Lieberman, as appalling as they are, are more honest and less two-faced than the war criminal Livni, who (in)famously claimed with a straight face during the slaughter in Gaza last winter that there was no humanitarian crisis. Give me Bibi over hypocrites like Livni any day.
In some regard I agree with Tzipi, deal with the moderate parties. In this case however, Hamas is the moderate party. They are the ones who, unlike the inept PA Fatah idiots, are saying "END THE OCCUPATION, ESTABLISH STATE ON 67 BORDERS" just like the rest of the world. Why is Israel not negotiating with Hamas? They were voted into power by the Palestinians and are therefore more representitive of them than Fatah. Israel should just accept that Hamas wants what Israel needs...state on 67 borders and ceasefire for 20 years. After 20 years of peace the problem will go away.