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Foreign Minister Livni: Talks on dividing Jerusalem? No problem. (Flash 90 photo)
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| By Israel Insider staff February 10, 2008 |
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"We will check your story and if it is true, Shas will leave the government," Yishai told the Jerusalem Post. He added that the party would also leave if the government continued to negotiate while rockets were being fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu urged Shas to leave the coalition. "Following the [government's] security failures and in light of what I've read on Jerusalem being discussed in negotiations, I call on our friends in Shas: You share our opinions, our concern for Jerusalem, our concern for security - I call on you to do the right thing. And the right thing is to stop these dangerous moves and quit the government," Netanyahu said.
Earlier, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had said that negotiations are taking place between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei (Abu Allah) are dealing with the status of Jerusalem. Livni admitted it, and a PA officials say that much progress is being made including Israeli agreement to hand over "almost all" Arab-populated areas of the city.
That contradicted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's promise to the Shas Party that talks are not taking place, and would not take place till the very end of negotiations. Shas had declared that it will bolt the coalition and bring down the government the moment talks over Jerusalem ensue.
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"The main progress has been achieved during the secret talks, particularly on the issue of Jerusalem. Today we can say that Israel is prepared to withdraw from almost all the Arab neighborhoods and villages in Jerusalem. Israel is prepared to redivide Jerusalem and this is a positive development."
PA official, commenting on progress in talks with Israel's diplomatic team
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Abbas made the statements before meeting with European Parliament members in Ramallah Thursday. FM Livni confirmed negotiations in a meeting with foreign diplomats late last week.
Hagai Huberman reports in Sunday's edition of Makor Rishon that FM Livni told foreign diplomats a few days ago that "in her talks with Abu Ala (aka Ahmed Qurei) they are in fact discussing all the key issues, including Jerusalem. She admitted that this conflicts with what the prime minister said two weeks ago that for Shas to hear, that the matter of Jerusalem would only be discussed at the end of the negotiations."
A PA official went further, saying that most issues concerning Jerusalem were actually resolved in secret meetings. "There are public meetings and there are secret ones," the PA official explained. "The main progress has been achieved during the secret talks, particularly on the issue of Jerusalem. Today we can say that Israel is prepared to withdraw from almost all the Arab neighborhoods and villages in Jerusalem. Israel is prepared to redivide Jerusalem and this is a positive development."
"The cat is out of the bag," MK Zevulun Orlev (NU/NRP) told the Post. "The fact that [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert's government is not telling the truth over the negotiations with the Palestinians has been revealed.
"Shas will no longer be able to say they didn't know. Even if the prime minister isn't telling them the truth, they can thank the Jerusalem Post for revealing it to them. I hope Shas keeps its promise and leaves the government that is dividing Jerusalem," Orlev said.
Jerusalem Municipality opposition leader Nir Barkat called on Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to come clean: "I demand that the foreign minister, who heads the negotiations with the Palestinians, publicly disclose all secret and other agreements that the state of Israel has reached with the Palestinians," Barkat told the Post.
In response to the report, which quoted a senior PA official in Ramallah, Barkat said that Jerusalem had better not be the subject of secret talks. Barkat, a high tech multimillionaire who heads a campaign against the proposed division of the capital, said "any such agreement achieved on behalf of an Israeli official would constitute an absolute deviation to Kadima's basic principles, a violation to the basic law of Jerusalem, betrays the trust of the voter and undermines the sovereign basis of the Israel's Knesset."
"The Palestinians must understand that neither the government of Israel, nor any other body on its behalf, have the right to promise to give up areas where Israeli law, governance and legislation has been implemented," he said.
United Torah Judaism MK Avraham Ravitz said that if "the story is true, then the Jerusalem's fate is being decided like a thief in the night. It cannot be that while Olmert is denying that there are any talks about Jerusalem at all, Tzipi Livni is negotiating in back rooms with Abu Ala (Qurei) about the state of our capital."
Yet Shas Spokesman Roi Lachmanovitch originally dismissed the report. "Nobody is talking about Jerusalem," he told Arutz Sheva. "The moment Jerusalem is being discussed Shas will leave the government -- period." Asked if he was claiming that Livni is lying, he said: "I am not saying she is lying -- but I am saying that absolutely nobody is negotiating over Jerusalem."
Shas Party Chairman Eli Yishai told party activists in Tiberias that he expects new national elections to take place before November.
Yishai's latest comments came after the reports of the secret talks over Jerusalem came out, and Shas headquarters were deluged with calls, emails and faxes urging the party to leave the government.
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