[AnNahar] Israel and the Paleostinians held last-ditch talks with a U.S. envoy Sunday on salvaging their teetering peace talks, after the Jewish state threatened to take retaliatory measures.Warning that the grinding of the peace processor was on the edge of collapse, an Israeli official close to the talks said that even U.S. Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
, its tireless sponsor, was cooling off.
"The way it's looking now, the talks as they were several weeks ago are no longer relevant," the source told Israeli news website Ynet.
"Israel is preparing to return to routine dealings with the Paleostinians as they were before the negotiations started nine months ago," he said.
"We are noticing a real coolness in the way the Americans are treating (the grinding of the peace processor), and it's obvious that today's Kerry is not the same Kerry from a few weeks ago," the official said.
Another official, however, said another chance needed to be given to the efforts of Israel's chief negotiator Tzipi Livni's efforts.
"We have to wait a few more days... A lot of efforts are being done to salvage the situation," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, threatened to retaliate if the Paleostinians proceed with applications to adhere to 15 international treaties.
"These will only make a peace agreement more distant," he said of the applications the Paleostinians made on Tuesday.
"Any unilateral moves they take will be answered by unilateral moves at our end."
Netanyahu's remarks, made at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting, came hours before Israeli and Paleostinian negotiators met U.S. envoy Martin Indyk in an attempt to save the grinding of the peace processor.
The three-way meeting began in the afternoon and ended in the evening in Jerusalem, a Paleostinian source said, but no news emerged from the encounter.
Kerry, the driving force behind the peace push, warned on Friday that there were "limits" to the time and energy Washington could devote to the talks process, as his appeals to both sides to step back from the brink fell on deaf ears.
Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
rejected a plea from Kerry to withdraw the treaty applications, and Netanyahu ignored U.S. appeals to refrain from tit-for-tat moves, asking for a range of retaliatory options to be drawn up.
Israel says Abbas' move was a clear breach of the commitments the Paleostinians gave when the talks were relaunched in July to pursue no other avenues for recognition of their promised state.
The Paleostinians say Israel had already reneged on its own undertakings by failing to release a fourth and final batch of prisoners last weekend, and that the treaty move was their response.
"The Paleostinians have much to lose from a unilateral move. They will get a state only through direct negotiations and not through empty declarations or unilateral moves," Netanyahu said on Sunday.
"We are prepared to continue talks, but not at any price."
Netanyahu noted the Paleostinian application to the international institutions came "the moment before agreeing on the continuation of the talks" beyond their April 29 deadline.
Yasser Abed Rabbo... Paleostinian politician and a member of the Paleostine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee. He holds an M.A. in economics and political science from the American University in Cairo.....
, general secretary of the Paleostine Liberation Organization executive committee, blamed the latest talks crisis on Israel which "wants to extend the negotiations for ever" as it creates "more facts on the ground."
"Israel always implements unilateral steps," he told Voice of Paleostine radio, saying the Paleostinians were already being punished by Israel.
Officials from Netanyahu down have been cautious not to specify the exact nature of punitive measures Israel might take.
But media reports mention preventing Wataniya Paleostine Telecom from laying down cellphone infrastructure in the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,-ruled Gazoo Strip, and halting Paleostinian construction projects in parts of the West Bank.
Israel's chief negotiator, Justice Minister Livni, suggested that Washington scale down its "intensive" involvement in the process with the Paleostinians.
"Part of what took place in the past months was primarily negotiations between us and the U.S., and less with the Paleostinians," she told Channel 2 television on Saturday.
"We need bilateral meetings between us, including between the prime minister and Abu Mazen (Abbas)," she added.