Tensions simmer in Israel coalition over possible Palestine talks

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's tentative agreement to revive U.S.-sponsored peace talks with the Palestinians met scepticism and scorn on Sunday from some members of his rightist coalition government, including within his own party.

With no date yet set for negotiations to begin, let alone a public blueprint for their terms, Netanyahu did not yet appear at risk of a political crisis. Rare praise for him from the centre-left opposition suggested they were willing to replace any nationalist allies he might lose over a future peace accord.

Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have been tight-lipped about the prospective talks, in keeping with the discretion requested by U.S. Secretary John Kerry, who announced the breakthrough on Friday after months of intensive mediation.

Washington hopes to host Israeli and Palestinian negotiators within a week for the launch of "final-status" talks on founding a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state, in territories the latter captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/21/uk-palestinians-israel-idUKBRE96K03J20130721

[rpannier]

1. I wish him luck if he's serious

Because it's not just from his coalition partners that he'll get flack. The revs. moneybags hagee and marion robertson will also be having hissies

[dipsydoodle]

2. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks' resumption put in doubt by both sides

Moves towards a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were mired in rumours, rebuttals, criticism and confusion on Sunday in an indication of the political and diplomatic swamp facing key negotiators and their mediator, the US secretary of state, John Kerry.

In a high-profile dismissal of the embryonic process, Israel's former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, wrote on Facebook that there was "no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at least not in the coming years, and what's possible and important to do is conflict-management".

Naftali Bennett, economics minister, insisted construction on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem would continue, regardless of talks.

The comments by two crucial partners in the Israeli coalition are a sign of deep hostility within the government over the agreement for preliminary talks forged by Kerry on Friday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/21/israel-palestinian-peace-talks-doubt