Livni says Netanyahu was ready to negotiate on 1967 lines in 2014 talks

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was willing to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal based on the 1967 lines during the 2014 peace talks, MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) says at the Haaretz Peace Conference in Tel Aviv on Monday.

“Netanyahu always veers left, then gets to the crossroads and turns right,” Livni tells the conference. “Bibi the politician doesn’t want to do what Netanyahu the statesman knows needs to be done,” she adds, using the prime minister’s nickname.

In recent days, new details have been revealed about the framework agreement that then-US secretary of state John Kerry presented to Jerusalem and Ramallah. According to the leaks, published in Haaretz, the document called for negotiations based on the 1967 lines.

Netanyahu demanded from the Americans “deniability,” says Livni, who served as his justice minister and chief peace negotiator at the time. She explains that the prime minister did not want be seen by his political base as too soft but that he was ready and willing to work with the framework agreement.

“Netanyahu was ready to negotiate a two-state solution based on the 67 borders with lands swaps. What you hear from him today is a renunciation of that position,” says Livni. “Every single letter was acceptable to him,” she says about the framework agreement.

It was a “great achievement” to have Netanyahu agree to negotiate peace along the lines acceptable to the Palestinians and most of the international community, she says. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “made a historic mistake” by not picking up the gauntlet.

— Raphael Ahren