Israel Has No Peace Partner in Abbas, Netanyahu Says
By: Administrative Account | Source: CNSNews.com
November 6, 2007 11:26AM EST

By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
November 06, 2007

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is not a partner for peace and is not capable of fighting terrorism, Israeli opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu said, as plans for a U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian conference seemed to be taking shape.

Netanyahu, a former prime minister who might hold the job again, warned that Israel was making a mistake in negotiating with Abbas.

"We have a partner for words, but not for deeds, certainly not for fighting terrorism, and to my regret, no partner for a real peace," Netanyahu said in a radio interview on Tuesday.

Netanyahu, leader of the rightwing Likud party, said that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was not being realistic when he claimed that Abbas (Abu Mazen) was a partner for peace and committed to fighting terrorism.

"Not only are they not fighting Hamas, Abu Mazen is incapable even of taking control of Fatah, his own people, who tried to assassinate the prime minister of Israel a few months ago," Netanyahu said. He was referring to an alleged plot by members of Abbas' Fatah faction to assassinate Olmert earlier this year.

According to Netanyahu, Hamas, under the sponsorship of Iran, would take over any territory that Israel cedes to the Palestinian Authority because the P.A. is not strong enough to control it. Olmert "is making peace with a virtual partner, in a virtual reality," he said.

Netanyahu's comments came just one day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she believed a full peace agreement to end the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians was possible by the end of President Bush's term.

Rice said that establishing a Palestinian state was more urgent at this time than ever before, given the "threat of violent extremism."

Plans for the U.S.-sponsored meeting appeared to be moving forward. Prime Minister Olmert said on Tuesday that the meeting in Annapolis, Md., probably would take place before the end of November.

The conference is intended to lay the groundwork for a return to serious peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Olmert has expressed optimism that "real accomplishments" can be achieved before the end of Bush's term.

On Monday, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said he agreed with an earlier statement by Olmert that "there is a real possibility to achieve peace," and he said the Palestinians "are serious about using this opportunity to reach this historical peace."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israeli lawmakers on Tuesday that Israel was prepared "to go very far at the Annapolis conference."

Barak was Israel's prime minister in 2000 when then-President Bill Clinton presided over the failed Israeli-Palestinian Camp David summit with P.A. Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Barak was quoted as saying that Israel would seek "important agreements" at Annapolis that would require the Palestinians to fulfill the first stage of the road map peace plan, including dismantling terrorist organizations -- even those in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas.

But Halil Abu Leileh, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, told the BBC Arabic news that his group would do everything it could to scuttle the Annapolis meeting.

Former Israeli army chief of staff and government minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak said that while Abbas and P.A. Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad were willing to implement law and order in the West Bank, it was too early to judge whether they would be successful.

Lipkin-Shahak was speaking to journalists in Jerusalem on Monday on the sidelines of the Saban Forum, an annual conference on U.S.-Israel strategic relations.

Martin Indyk, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, told reporters on Monday that while Olmert seemed to be preparing the Israeli public for "serious action," it is worrisome that Abbas was not.

Olmert was telling his people that "the time is coming for serious action" in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations when he spoke in Hebrew at the Saban Forum, Indyk said.

"I'm not sure the Israeli public is taking him seriously or for that matter really paying attention, but he's out there," said Indyk. "What I don't see yet is the Palestinian leadership preparing the Palestinian people in the same way -- and that worries me."

Indyk said one of the reasons the Camp David summit failed is that neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian leaders at that time prepared their people for the concessions they were about to make.

"It's really important for the Palestinian leadership to take a stand in a way that makes it clear to their people there are going to have to be some bitter pills to be swallowed on both sides not just by Israel," he said.

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