Likud Pushes Bill to Prevent Peace Deals With Palestinians
Palestinians Doubt Livni Will Be Able to Make Peace
Just one day after Tzipi Livni was unveiled as the upcoming Israeli coalition’s peace negotiator, her power is set to be greatly hamstrung by a new bill moving through the Israeli Knesset and backed by Likud MPs opposed to the Livni appointment.
The bill would bar the government from conducting any internal debates let alone voting on any potential peace deals with any other nations in the Middle East, or the Palestinian Authority, without an explicit referendum held nationwide that endorses the pact.
Though in theory this leaves Livni free to negotiate, it effectively makes those negotiations meaningless since she won’t have any authority to reach any deal, and any draft agreements she does reach will have to be put to a formal vote with an Israeli public polls say is largely ambivalent about the process in the first place.
While Palestinian negotiators had seen Livni as backing a deal in the past, they doubt she can have any real influence given the likely structure of the next government, and many see her decision to join a far-right coalition as a betrayal of her past support for a deal.
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mojo
February 20th, 2013 at 9:36 pm
The only language that will force Israel to give up its delusional idea about peace is for Israel to be boycotted totally and by all means… Turkey is one of those countries that can and should start its own version.
curmudgeonvt
February 21st, 2013 at 8:06 am
This boycott, which will never happen btw, should include as the first article the "aid" (US taxpayer dollars) that is delivered free and unencumbered every year – but that wouldn't happen either.
Mark Thomason
February 21st, 2013 at 10:04 am
Fantasies about Livni's supposed intentions are absurd. She had power. With power, she did Cast Lead and the non-negotiations spelled out in the Palestine Paper, defying law and abusing the pathetic PA that crawled to her.
She means nothing. Nothing. It is more smoke and mirrors to placate the US while the Israelis do as they want, which is bantustans as a step to ethnic cleansing, Arabs to Jordan.