Liberman: Israel has shown it is ready for peace

Israel has proven repeatedly that it is prepared to make peace with the Palestinians, and remains ready to achieve “a comprehensive solution” despite the latest crisis in the talks, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Sunday.

“We’re ready to talk, we’re ready to negotiate, but we won’t accept any unilateral steps” on the part of the Palestinians, Liberman told foreign diplomats at the Foreign Ministry headquarters in Jerusalem.

In the past, he added, after the Oslo and Annapolis talks, it was the Palestinians who refused to sign agreements, yet world leaders continue to place the blame squarely on Israel.

“What is interesting from our point of view, certain countries and leaders… refused to blame the Palestinians for sabotaging the agreement. After some time… they started to blame Israel, and of course placed all pressure on us.”

Israel nevertheless has “proven our readiness to achieve a comprehensive solution, a final status agreement with the Palestinians,” and this readiness was “not lip service.”

Negotiations have reached the brink of collapse in recent weeks when Israel criticized a Palestinian refusal to commit to further talks past the April 29 end date set when negotiations began nine months ago. Israel then canceled a promised fourth round of prisoner releases.

The Palestinian Authority, in turn, applied for membership in 15 international conventions and organizations, a move Palestinian officials have said demonstrates to Israel that international recognition for a Palestinian state can be obtained without Israel’s agreement.

Israel responded to the applications by instituting a series of financial and governmental sanctions on PA institutions.

Despite the crisis, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is Israel’s lead negotiator to the talks, sounded a decidedly optimistic tone on Sunday morning.

“I believe we’re close enough to a decision on the part of both leaderships, encouraged by the Americans, to continue negotiations,” she told the Ynet news site.

The discussions on returning to the negotiating table were “very complex, not simple, at times with raised voices,” she added, but insisted in the interview that “peace isn’t a luxury. We need this. It’s an Israeli need.”

Livni was meeting with her Palestinian counterpart, Saeb Erekat, on Sunday afternoon in Jerusalem as part of the continuing US-led effort to restore the talks.

A bipartisan group of MKs announced that they would travel to Ramallah Wednesday to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in an effort to help overcome the crisis.

Abbas spoke Sunday with MK Hilik Bar (Labor), who chairs the Knesset Caucus for Resolving the Arab-Israeli Conflict. The two agreed on a meeting in Abbas’s Ramallah headquarters, the Muqata, between the Palestinian leader and a “limited” group of MKs belonging to the caucus.

“In the meeting, President Abu Mazen [Abbas] is expected to discuss [with the MKs] the crisis in negotiations and to present possibilities for continuing the talks. The president is also expected to hear from the MKs, who belong to a variety of coalition and opposition parties, their views on the possibilities for continuing negotiations and preventing crises between the sides,” read a statement from Bar’s office.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.