It takes three to peace tango, Netanyahu quips

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday expressed hope for a determined effort by the Palestinians to attain significant results in the upcoming round of peace talks, which may start next week in the United States.

“It takes two to tango, but in the Middle East you need three,” Netanyahu told new IDF recruits at the military induction center outside Tel Aviv, Ynet news reported. “I hope that there will be a single-mindedness to achieve a peace that we can protect.”

Last Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new framework for renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, hosted by the United States. Several days later, Netanyahu announced that he would put any peace deal to a public referendum.

As Netanyahu commented on the upcoming talks, Minister for Regional Cooperation Silvan Shalom remarked that the roundtable meetings between American, Israeli and Palestinian leaders could begin next week.

“Things haven’t been finalized yet, but the hope is for talks to restart on Tuesday,” Shalom said following a visit to Jericho. “We want to move ahead with negotiations and at the same time look forward to an improvement in the Palestinian economy.”

Shalom remarked that he didn’t discount the possibility that Palestinian prisoners could be released from Israeli incarceration before the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the month of Ramadan, in two weeks.

Shalom attended the inauguration of a joint Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian industrial park near the West Bank city of Jericho funded by the Japanese government.

The prime minister also reassured the recruits that everything was being done to ensure that planned defense budget cuts would not interfere with their training.

“I hope that the cuts won’t affect you and we are attempting to see to it that you will have a continuous training regime,” he said. “I determined that the damage done to training will be minimal.”