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Itongadol.- Defense Minister Moshe Ya\’alon said on Tuesday that the government is working to reach common ground with the Palestinians so that negotiations could continue beyond the nine months allotted by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Speaking during a tour of the IDF Central Command, Ya\’alon said that the two sides were not discussing a "framework agreement" per se, but terms that would set the framework for the continuation of talks.
Israeli officials said that the agreement could be reached orally, since the Palestinians have thus far expressed opposition to a position paper.
Finance Minister Yair Lapid told Army Radio on Tuesday that Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman\’s proposal to transfer Arab townships in Israel proper to Palestinian Authority control was unfeasible.
"I don\’t think that the State of Israel will get rid of Israeli citizens," Lapid said. "One of the things that we expect from a final-status agreement is that it would bring about a complete change in our relations with the world, which have been in constant decline these last few years."
"An agreement [that would entail population transfers] would mean giving up an improvement in our relations, and I don\’t want that," the finance minister said.
Lapid called on the Israeli government to "take more seriously" US Secretary of State John Kerry\’s efforts to move the peace process forward.
Liberman said on Sunday that the only agreement with the Palestinians that Yisrael Beytenu will support will be one where there is an exchange of populations, and not only territory.
Speaking at the Foreign Ministry’s annual meeting of Israel’s ambassadors, Liberman said he was referring specifically to re-routing the border so that Wadi Ara and the Little Triangle, a collection of Arab villages next to the Green Line, would be a part of a future Palestinian state.
"We are not talking about a transfer, as was done to the Jewish settlements in Gush Katif,” he said. “Nobody will be expelled from their homes or dispossessed of their possessions.”
Instead, he said, what he had in mind was “simply moving the border.”
Liberman said there was no reason Israeli Arabs living there “should not join their brethren under full Palestinian sovereignty and become citizens of the future Palestinian state that they want so badly.”