[Pak Daily Times] Just days before Washington's top diplomat returns to push for a resumption of direct peace talks, a growing number of Israeli ministers are openly expressing their opposition to the two-state solution.US Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
due to hold a fresh round of talks on Thursday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli leader has been at pains to stress his commitment to resuming dialogue with the Paleostinians.
"If Secretary Kerry, whose efforts we support, were to pitch a tent halfway between here and Ramallah -- that's 15 minutes away driving time -- I'm in it, I'm in the tent," Netanyahu told the Washington Post last week.
"And I'm committed to stay in the tent and negotiate for as long as it takes to work out a solution of peace and security between us and the Paleostinians."
In the interview, he reiterated his support for a two-state solution which would see the establishment of a demilitarised Paleostinian state in the framework of a deal that assures Israel's security.
But hardliners within Netanyahu's government have been increasingly quick to contradict him, rejecting the idea of a Paleostinian state under any conditions.
Earlier this month, coalition partner Naftali Bennett, who heads the far-right Jewish Home party drew an analogy in which he suggested that for Israel, the Paleostinian issue was akin to having "shrapnel in the buttocks."
Although it could be removed by a risky operation, the patient would be "left disabled" he said, suggesting it was something, which Israel simply had to live with.
"We won't veto the negotiations, we won't bring down the government over this," Bennett told army radio on Tuesday morning, saying he didn't believe "anything much" would come out of Kerry's fifth visit to the region since February.
Even within Netanyahu's ruling rightwing Likud party, the hardline settler lobby is gaining more and more power.
Likud's Danny Danon, who serves as Deputy Defence Minister, sparked uproar earlier this month after he came out against a Paleostinian state.
Danon said the government was not serious about it and that moves to create one would be opposed by most of the coalition.
Since the elections in January, when Likud ran on a joint list with the hardline Yisrael Beitenu, winning a very narrow victory, Netanyahu has faced by a growing revolt within the party.
"Netanyahu no longer controls Likud," said political commentator Amit Segal on Israel's Channel 2 television.
Senior coalition partner Avigdor Lieberman, who heads Yisrael Beitenu, has also adopted a tough line vis-a-vis peace, insisting that Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
is not a partner with whom Israel can talk.
Another coalition partner is Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who serves as Israel's chief peace negotiator, who has denounced the wave of diplomatic nay-saying sparked by Danon.