Ex-aide to PM says leak could nix future US-brokered peace talks

Former Israeli national security adviser Yaakov Amidror says that if the document outlining Netanyahu’s alleged concessions to the Palestinians was indeed leaked by Washington, as had been suggested, it would undermine the possibility of future US-brokered talks.

“There is no doubt that this leak radically impairs the possibility of serious negotiations in the future,” Amidror tells the Walla news website.

“It doesn’t matter who will be the next prime minister — Benjamin Netanyahu or Isaac Herzog — he will not be able to rely 100 percent on the confidentiality of the negotiations after a leak like this. The same is true for the Palestinians, who will ask themselves — we will agree to all these ideas, and then read about it in the papers? By us, the damage is only political, but on the Palestinian side, it could cost lives.”

“Whoever leaked this caused severe damage to the process, because both sides will not be able to rely on the American administration any longer,” he continues.

Amidror insisted that the document did not accurately represent Netanyahu’s position, but was rather an American draft proposal that “was meant to be bad enough for both sides so they could say they had reservations, without telling the Americans to ‘go to hell.’

“There is no Israeli-Palestinian agreement here, only an American attempt to create a draft that will allow both sides to go to the negotiating room and talk,” he says.

Amidror also defended Netanyahu in the face of right-wing criticism for being too conciliatory and left-wing criticism for being too passive. “I can almost instinctively say that if the right thinks there are too many concessions, and the left thinks there aren’t enough concessions — this is probably the right position.”