An Arab MP in the Israeli Knesset cast doubts on the outcome of direct talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel saying PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightist stance remains unchanged.
 
"I don't see signs Netanyahu has changed. Therefore, the expectation for a breakthrough in the peace process doesn't exist, at least for me," Deputy Israeli Parliament (Knesset) Speaker Ahmed Tibi said in an interview with Haaretz.

He said there were three reasons for his pessimism. “Netanyahu’s diplomatic positions, the right-wing and the very extremist composition of his government and the inaction on the part of the American administration.” Tibi added that “for this assessment to change there will have to be a drastic shift in Netanyahu and his surroundings and the United States will have to change the role it has been playing unsuccessfully for 17 years.”
 
Tibi served in the past as adviser to Palestinian Authority head Yasser Arafat, was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Wye Plantation summit in 1998 and is considered close to the Palestinian negotiating team in the direct talks. “What I am describing faithfully represents the Palestinian mood. This round of talks, on which I am not pining hopes, will be the last. Failure of these talks is liable to lead to harsh results and an outbreak of violence and this worries me very much,” Tibi warned.
 
"I can't see any Palestinian leader signing a final agreement in which there isn't sovereignty in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) including the holy places and Al-Aqsa, and in which there is not a return of territory equal to 6,235 square kilometers, the total area of the West Bank," Tibi told Haaretz.
 
"I think Netanyahu's proposal is not to end the occupation, but rather to rearrange it," he noted. “Netanyahu is saying, "Give me a chance." He has already had chances in the past and the results are known. Today Netanyahu is heading a coalition that is further to the right and we will see the results when he starts discussing the future of Jerusalem,” the Knesset member also said.

Questioned about the consequences of a failure in the negotiations for the Palestinian Authority, Tibi said: “If the negotiations don't succeed, and the (United Nations ) Security Council does not impose an arrangement in which there is recognition of the establishment of a Palestinian state, it is possible there will no longer be a need for the PA. Then the world will have to confront once again the reality of occupier and occupied, without the PA as a mediating element.”
 
Tibi pointed that Arabs had taken a historic step towards Israel in the Arab initiative proposal “which Israel shelved.” “Could anyone have imagined that 20 years ago a proposal like this would have arisen? They should have grabbed the Arab League proposal with both hands. They did the opposite,” he told Haaretz.


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