Israel wants 'permanent channel of dialogue' with Abbas

Israel wants to reopen a serious dialogue with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and work with him to establish a Palestinian state, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said today.

Livni spoke after meeting with Abbas yesterday in New York, in the first working session between high-ranking Israeli and Palestinian officials in four months.

Their talks coincided with Abbas’ efforts to persuade the Palestinians’ Hamas rulers to moderate their anti-Israel policies and join with his Fatah party in a coalition government.

“I don’t see this as one meeting and each side checks off a box and goes home,” Livni told Israel’s Army Radio about her talks with Abbas on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

“The idea is to establish a permanent channel of dialogue.”

“We have a goal ... of achieving a two-state solution,” she said.

Israel’s dialogue with the Palestinians has been largely frozen since Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, won Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.

But Israel considers Abbas – a moderate elected separately in 2005 – an acceptable negotiating conduit.

“It was a very, very positive meeting with Mrs. Livni. We talked (about) everything,” Abbas told reporters after the talks at the United Nations.

Abbas and Livni discussed reopening the dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian officials, including a meeting between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as soon as possible, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

Abbas agreed to an unconditional meeting with Olmert that would be part of a series of meetings between Palestinian and Israeli officials, he said.

The two leaders were about to hold their first working meeting in June when Hamas-affiliated militants captured an Israeli soldier, derailing all efforts at talks.

Abbas promised Livni to “exert maximum effort” to secure the soldier’s release, Erekat said.

Livni said she told Abbas that Israel stood firm by its refusal to deal with Hamas until it renounce violence, recognise signed peace agreements and recognise Israel. Hamas has resisted these demands, though, and that could compromise the establishment of a coalition government and dash Abbas’ hopes of restoring hundreds of millions of pounds in international funding cut off after Hamas took power.

Yielding to growing domestic pressure, Hamas agreed last week to form a coalition with Fatah in hopes of lifting the economic boycott, which has made it impossible for the government to pay employees who provide for one-third of all Palestinians. But the US and EU want clearer statements on the new government’s commitment to peace efforts.

Although Israel has postponed its plan to withdraw from large areas of the West Bank, the government is interested in advancing in the US-backed “road map” peace plan that outlines the formation of a Palestinian state, Livni said.

“The road map is still on the table,” she said.

The road map aimed to establish a Palestinian state by 2005, but Israel and the Palestinians have failed to carry out their obligations and it has languished.

Public support in Israel for the West Bank pullback sank after the militants allied with Hamas tunnelled from the Gaza Strip into Israel to kidnap the soldier at an army post. The attack, which came after Israel withdrew last year from the Gaza Strip, sparked a large military offensive in the Palestinian area in which more than 200 Palestinians have been killed, most of them militants.

Israelis have also been sceptical of any serious moves toward reconciliation with Arabs since a 34-day war in Lebanon against Hezbollah guerrillas who carried out a cross-border attack in mid-July, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two.

A poll published today showed that 66 percent of Palestinians back Hamas’ refusal to recognise Israel, although support for the group has dropped since it took power in March from 47 percent to 38 percent.

According to the poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 54% of those questioned were dissatisfied with the overall performance of the Hamas government, with 69% saying they were displeased by the dire economic situation.

Also today, security officials said Defence Minister Amir Peretz has ordered the demolition of about 45 structures in unauthorised Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank, and that they would be torn down within weeks.

Peretz’s earlier plans to remove 12 outposts were shunted aside in July after the war in Lebanon broke out.

Israel promised the US three years ago to take down about two dozen outposts erected after Ariel Sharon became prime minister in 2001, but little action has been taken.