Israel might have to consider a unilateral withdrawal from the occupied West Bank if peace talks fail to achieve a breakthrough, Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, said.
“Inaction is not an option,” he told a conference on Israeli security after almost two years in which negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership have been on ice.
“We must try and achieve a comprehensive agreement. It is of the utmost importance. We must aim to discuss all of the core issues, putting an end to the conflict, and an end to mutual claims. If this appears to be impossible, we need to think of an interim agreement, and even unilateral actions.”
The Palestinians have refused to return to talk until Israel agrees to halt the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal by the international community but have about half a million people.
Mr Barak, who as Prime Minister almost a decade ago came close to agreeing on the basis of a Palestinian state, said in an address to Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies that with one of the largest coalition governments in history it was time to tackle the thorny issue again.
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“We are a coalition of 94 MKs [Members of the Knesset], this is the time to lead a diplomatic process,” he said. But he warned that if the talks that have stretched on for more than two decades proved fruitless once again, “we must consider an interim arrangement or even a unilateral move”.
Mr Barak added: “We are on borrowed time. We will reach a wall, and we’ll pay the price.”
His comments drew the anger of the Israeli Right and the Palestinians.
“One wonders how there are people willing to toy with such a dangerous idea after the utter failure of the unilateral disengagement from Gaza,” Gideon Sa’ar, the Education Minister, told the Israeli media, recalling Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from that territory, now under the control of the Islamist movement Hamas.
And Nabil Abu Rudeina, a top aide to Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, said that “Israeli unilateral moves will lead to the formation of a Palestinian state in temporary borders, to which we object. This policy will lead to the conflict’s continuation and not to a solution, burying the two-state solution.” The Palestinian Authority remained committed to “a final agreement in which a Palestinian state will be formed with Jerusalem as its capital . . . Without Jerusalem, we won’t agree to anything.”
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• Israel handed over the remains of 91 Palestinians killed during attacks on the country. Some of them died more than 40 years ago, officials on both sides said. They had been buried in the Jordan Valley, said Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the Palestinian general committee for civil affairs. The bodies were handed over at dawn at a location near Jericho, West Bank. “They will all be wrapped in a shroud and the Palestinian flag. They will be identified and have the last rites performed,” he said.