Israeli president says Netanyahu torpedoed peace deal
ISRAELI president Shimon Peres said on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deliberately destroyed a peace deal that had been reached covertly with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2011.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 news, Peres said that “almost all issues” had been resolved in a series of secret meetings held in Jordan.
As the deal approached completion, Peres said that Netanyahu told him to wait three or four days for a better deal to come along, The Times of Israel reports.
“The days went by and there was no better deal,” said Peres. “Netanyahu stopped it [the potential agreement]”.
The deal included the explicit recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the president said.
“He was supposed to agree [to recognise] a Jewish state and we were supposed to agree to recognise a Palestinian state,” Peres said.
Peres, who has known Abbas for 30 years, described the Palestinian Authority President as a man of “character”, a “fighter against terrorism”, and someone who is courageous and believes in peace, The Jerusalem Post reports.
Last month, the latest round of peace talks broke down after Abbas announced a deal with Hamas, a Palestinian faction that Israel describes as a “terrorist group”.
Netanyahu responded to the accusation by denying that any agreement had been reached three years ago, Jewish Press reports. “The only one Abbas has reached an agreement with is with Hamas”, Netanyahu said in a statement released on Voice of Israel government radio.
Peres served twice as the Prime Minister of Israel and twice as interim prime minister. He is a member of Kadima, a centrist Israeli political party. Netanyahu belongs to Likud, the major centre-right party. The two politicians have long been ideological opposites, but have tended to be supportive of one another, the Daily Beast notes.
In Israel, the role of president is largely ceremonial and full executive power rests with the prime minister. Peres is set to retire in two months’ time at the age of 90.
Read the story here