Lieberman sees common ground with Livni

Lieberman sees common ground with Livni

Here's an unintended consequence of Al Jazeera's release of The Palestine Papers: Israeli media are reporting today (in Hebrew) that Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has invited Tzipi Livni, the head of the Kadima party, to a coalition meeting.

The invitation came in response to our story yesterday about Livni's proposal (made while she was foreign minister) to "transfer" Arab Israeli villages into a future Palestinian state. It's reminiscent of a similar plan proposed by Lieberman several years back.

So Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party invited Livni to present her views at a meeting. "Her proposal is consistent with ours," the party said in its invitation.

Livni's office rejected the idea a few hours later, calling it a "ridiculous proposal," according to the Jerusalem Post.

"Israel Beiteinu, not for the first time, deals with headlines and not the essence. Had they read the details they would see that there is no link between what was written in the Al-Jazeera documents themselves and the very problematic proposals by Lieberman."

Ha'aretz reported today - citing "sources involved in the negotiations" - that Livni dropped the idea after the Palestinian side rejected it. (The papers show that Livni and her advisers raised the idea several times, and that it was never categorically rejected during meetings.)