(JPOST).Israel is "very close" to making a deal to restart negotiations with the Palestinians, Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor said Sunday.
He endorsed the possibility of talking about final-status issues, such as Jerusalem, as part of those negotiations even though Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been resisting doing so, but Meridor cautioned against building expectations too high as a result.
"Creating hopes and then frustrating them is very dangerous," Meridor warned, during a keynote address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's fall conference.
The US has been pushing Israelis and Palestinians to start talks immediately, including on final-status issues, with Israeli and Palestinian officials making several trips to Washington in recent days, as momentum has been building following months of miscues.
Meridor stressed, though, that while talks are going on, Israelis and Palestinians need to continue to focus on improving conditions on the ground.
He expressed support for Palestinian plans to build state institutions in the West Bank despite disapproval from other members of the government over the program.
Meridor described Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation at the best it's ever been, and credited the Palestinians with many of the recent improvements in the economic and security conditions in the West Bank.
"There is no terror," he said, adding, "The economic position in Judea and Samaria is improving every day."
But that alone, he said, wasn't sufficient for peace to be made. And, he stressed, "The status quo is not an option."
Meridor also declared that should Iran succeed in acquiring nuclear weapons, it would end the peace process.
"If Iran wins this round," he said, "there will not be a peace process," because with a nuclear weapon the provocations by Iran proxies Hamas and Hizbullah would increase tenfold and "they will not allow the peace process to take place."
Meridor expressed skepticism about the US policy of engagement, saying that it's too early to tell whether the process of international powers speaking to Iran recently begun in Geneva would bear fruit.
On Radio Jerusalem Meridor added that the Israelis and Palestinians are close to agreeing on a formula that would allow the peace talks to restart.
He endorsed the possibility of talking about final-status issues, such as Jerusalem, as part of those negotiations even though Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been resisting doing so, but Meridor cautioned against building expectations too high as a result.
"Creating hopes and then frustrating them is very dangerous," Meridor warned, during a keynote address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's fall conference.
The US has been pushing Israelis and Palestinians to start talks immediately, including on final-status issues, with Israeli and Palestinian officials making several trips to Washington in recent days, as momentum has been building following months of miscues.
Meridor stressed, though, that while talks are going on, Israelis and Palestinians need to continue to focus on improving conditions on the ground.
He expressed support for Palestinian plans to build state institutions in the West Bank despite disapproval from other members of the government over the program.
Meridor described Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation at the best it's ever been, and credited the Palestinians with many of the recent improvements in the economic and security conditions in the West Bank.
"There is no terror," he said, adding, "The economic position in Judea and Samaria is improving every day."
But that alone, he said, wasn't sufficient for peace to be made. And, he stressed, "The status quo is not an option."
Meridor also declared that should Iran succeed in acquiring nuclear weapons, it would end the peace process.
"If Iran wins this round," he said, "there will not be a peace process," because with a nuclear weapon the provocations by Iran proxies Hamas and Hizbullah would increase tenfold and "they will not allow the peace process to take place."
Meridor expressed skepticism about the US policy of engagement, saying that it's too early to tell whether the process of international powers speaking to Iran recently begun in Geneva would bear fruit.
On Radio Jerusalem Meridor added that the Israelis and Palestinians are close to agreeing on a formula that would allow the peace talks to restart.
