The Prime Minister's Office is disappointed with the incident: "It will cause damage to the negotiations""

April 9, 2014   

After Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered this morning to stop all civil and economic ties with the Palestinian Authority, a senior official in his office told the New York Times today that Israel is "deeply disappointed" by the words of US Secretary of State John Kerry in a Senate hearing yesterday on the reasons for the breakdown of the negotiations. According to him, Kerry's statements "will damage the negotiations and harden the Palestinian positions." US State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said that Kerry "did not engage in blame games," and emphasized that he even praised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for "making courageous decisions." Kerry placed most of the responsibility for the breakdown of the negotiations on Israel, in a Senate hearing yesterday. He described the Palestinian appeal to international institutions as a response to steps taken by Israel and accused "both sides of taking negative steps." Netanyahu's office said, in an initial response to the remarks, that the US Secretary of State knows full well that the Palestinians are the ones who bear most of the responsibility for the collapse of the peace talks, as they have rejected every offer given to them - including the framework agreement that Kerry tried to formulate. "They didn't even agree to the actual discussion of the possibility of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state," the official said. According to the official, Israel wants to continue efforts to resolve the crisis and extend negotiations with the Palestinians, but he made it clear that Israel will take its own unilateral steps in response to the unilateral steps taken by the Palestinians. After Netanyahu's order this morning, the Palestinians were in no hurry to respond to the statement. Abbas arrived in Egypt to meet with the foreign ministers of the Arab League, and it is expected that Netanyahu's latest declaration will be discussed as part of that emergency meeting that is supposed to deal with the crisis in the talks between Israel and the Palestinians.