Word: likud
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...Syria's escalation of weapons deliveries probably represents frustration in Damascus that the U.S. hasn't brought Israel to the negotiating table, according to Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy. Israel's right-wing Likud Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly vowed that he won't give up the Golan, which he says Israel needs for military reasons, and has proposed that instead of trading "land for peace" - the basic formula for the Middle East peace process, as prescribed by successive U.S. Administrations and by U.N. resolutions - that Syria should simply accept "peace...
...that's the message Syria is trying to send through stepping up weapons shipments, the exercise could backfire. "Assad says he wants talks with Israel, but doubling down on Hizballah isn't going to make the Israelis come running, especially not a Likud government," says Tabler. "It makes a war that much more likely...
...that argument ignores is that, if he wants to make concessions for peace, Netanyahu has a willing coalition partner available in the form of the centrist Kadima Party, whose 28 seats make it the largest party in the 120-seat parliament. Together with the 27 held by his own Likud Party and the 13 held by Labor (which is already in his coalition), Netanyahu could easily muster a governing coalition committed to implementing a two-state peace - if he could persuade his own party to do so and, more importantly, if he intends to go there himself. That, fundamentally...
...with the right-wing parties that are committed to expanding settlements. For now, at least, Netanyahu is talking tough: "The building in Jerusalem - and in all other places - will continue in the same way as has been customary over the last 42 years," he told a meeting of fellow Likud Party members on Monday. (See pictures of Jerusalem, a divided city...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud parliamentary faction on Monday that he sensed a "change in the atmosphere" that would bring his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, to the table despite Israel's having refused to meet Abbas' - and President Obama's - demand for a freeze on Israeli construction on land that was conquered in 1967. Abbas hastened to correct that impression in statements on Tuesday, making clear that he won't talk to an Israeli government that continues to build in East Jerusalem or publicly commit to the 1967 borders as a basis for negotiations...