Oh yeah? Wait until Obama shows his foreign policy expertise.
Via The JPost
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has promised not to evacuate West Bank settlements. He made the comments Friday in Davos, Switzerland, amid three separate meetings he held there with US Secretary of State John Kerry on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
“I have no intention of evacuating any settlement or uprooting any Israelis,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew during a briefing for Israeli journalists on the nine-month negotiating cycle, which ends in April.
His statement, which runs counter to the assumption that a final-status agreement would involve the evacuation of settlements, was not republished by the Prime Minister’s Office.
An Israeli official cautioned on Saturday night not to equate territorial concessions Israel might make to the Palestinians with statements about settlement evacuations.
Netanyahu is “against uprooting settlements, but irrespective of where the final borders are going to be.
He thinks Jews should be allowed to live in a future Palestinian state,” the official said.
Palestinians have consistently rejected the idea of settlers remaining in their state and have insisted that Israel must evacuate all settlements and withdraw to the pre-1967 lines.
Justice Minister and peace negotiator Tzipi Livni, who was in Davos after meeting with Kerry in Washington last week, modified Netanyahu’s statement in an interview with Channel 2 on Saturday night.
“No one wants to evacuate settlements,” Livni said.
“Most of the settlements are in blocs and the people there will stay in their homes. About the rest [of the settlements], their fate will be determined in the negotiations.”
It would not be possible, she added, to both maintain the isolated settlements and make peace.
She also said the refusal of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to recognize Israel as Jewish state was problematic.
“It’s unacceptable to us and to the world, and if he continues to adhere to this he will pay a price,” she said.