Tzipi cannot resist

The leader of Israel's Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, has called on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to make the proper decisions that will facilitate the continuing of peace talks with the Palestinians. Her statement was released following Netanyahu's assertion that construction in settlements would resume despite Palestinian threats to leave the negotiations if building continues.

Wow! This has to be one of the most political and cowardly moves I ever saw. Livni does not say what she thinks needs to be done. She leaves that to Netanyahu. But Livni does tell him that he better make sure that the talks do not fail. In other words, she doesn't have the courage to actually tell her countrymen that she supports banning them from building homes in certain sections of Jerusalem, their capital, but she still wants to position herself so that she can complain if the talks fail and claim credit if they succeed.

Right now Israel is in a very sticky situation. Ten months ago, as a gesture to Obama, the Israelis temporarily stopped contruction in the so-called "settlements", the majority of which are parts of teh jerusalem metropolitan area. The Palestinians, of course, waited over nine months before agreeing to talk once the supposedly only precondition was met. Then the Palestinians said that they would leave the talks unless the construction ban was extended. Netanyahu has called their bluff and gone back to construction. Indeed, he had no choice if his government were to survive. polling shows that Israelis overwhelmingly support a return to construction, particularly in view of the Palestinians lack of seriousness in the peace talks.

The US has asked the Israelis to grant a temporary two month extension to the construction freeze so that the talks can continue. This seems more to do with the upcoming US elections than any hope of an actual breakthrough in the talks. No one believes that much progress could be made in the next two months. Indeed, the Palestinians have already indicated that much. Obama, however, does not want the talks to collapse before the November elections in the USA, so he is trying desperately to keep them going.

Let's hope that the Israelis stick with their current position. They cannot grant a veto to the palestinian authority over when and where jews can build homes in their capital city. A sovereign country does not do such things. Indeed, instead of focusing on peace talks with Abbas which cannot bring peace, it would be better if the Israelis focused on dealing with the threat from Iran which needs their full attention.