JERUSALEM: Israel’s hard-line foreign minister said Sunday that his party will try to block any extension of Israel’s settlement slowdown, a move that could derail the recently launched Mideast peace negotiations.
Avigdor Lieberman said the Israeli government must keep its explicit promise to voters that the 10-month slowdown, declared under U.S. pressure in order to draw the Palestinians to the negotiating table, will end as scheduled at the end of September.
The Sept. 26 deadline is a challenge for the fragile talks launched in Washington last week. The Palestinians say they will quit the talks if the slowdown ends, but extending it could potentially bring down the Israeli government.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to say how he will handle the deadline.
"A promise is a promise," Lieberman told Israel Radio. "We will not agree to any extension."
"I promise that if there’s a proposal that we don’t accept it will not pass," he said.
Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party is a key member of Israel’s governing coalition, which is led by Netanyahu’s Likud party.
In a sign that compromise was possible, however, Lieberman told the daily Yediot Ahronot that he would not quit the coalition even if he does not get his way.
"We will not leave or bring down the government. We will fight from the inside for what we believe," he told the paper.
At the summit marking the relaunch of peace talks in Washington last week, Netanyahu used unusually warm language about the Palestinian leadership and the chances for peace. But the Israeli foreign minister has been vocal in his pessimism.
In another interview Monday with Army Radio, Lieberman said the new talks were creating too many expectations and that the declared goal of a peace deal within a year was impossible.
The Israeli government says construction in settlements continued during previous rounds of peace talks and that building does not compromise a future deal. Many members of Netanyahu’s own party oppose any extension.
Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, a prominent member of Netanyahu’s party, said extending the slowdown would pose a "huge danger" to the coalition.
"Within the coalition, there is a huge majority against it," Shalom told reporters late Sunday.
Netanyahu is seeking a way to get through the Sept. 26 deadline without dismantling his coalition, alienating the Palestinians or angering the U.S. administration, which is backing the talks and has invested time and political capital in their success.
Netanyahu is slated to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for a second round of talks next week in Egypt and Jerusalem. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also scheduled to attend.
About 300,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, among the territory’s some 2.5 million Palestinians. The Palestinians and the international community say the settlements are obstacles to peace because they eat up land the Palestinians want for a future state.
Meanwhile, a dovish U.S. Jewish group says more than 150 American film and theater artists have signed a letter of support for Israeli actors who refused to perform in a West Bank settlement.
The names on the letter include Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave, Cynthia Nixon of "Sex and the City" and playwright Tony Kushner. It was organized by the Jewish Voice for Peace.
A group of Israeli actors sparked a vocal debate in Israel last month when they said they would refuse to perform at a new theater in the settlement of Ariel. They aimed to protest Israeli control of the West Bank.
The actors’ boycott drew support from a group of 150 Israeli academics and dozens of authors, including well-known writers Amos Oz and David Grossman.
