Livni: Abbas should ask Israel to remain to protect him

The war on Hamas and the Islamic movement's attempts to depose Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank prove that Abbas should ask the Israeli army to protect him instead of turning to the UN; Israeli media reported Justice Minister Tzipi Livni as saying.

Speaking days before Abbas was due to address the UN General Assembly where he was expected to demand a timetable for Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank, Livni criticised him and said he should continue peace negotiations with Israel.

Abbas had taken the easier route of going to the UN and forgoing negotiations, she said, "because in negotiations you have to pay a price and concede things, whereas when you go to the UN, you can get everything you want, but it will not give you a state... There is no state via the UN."

Blaming Abbas for ending the negotiations, she said: "I have grievances with him, over how the negotiations ended, over his turning to the UN, his joining up with Hamas in the Palestinian unity government."

Livni said that the cooperation between Israel and the moderate Arab powers in the region is an important issue that leads to achieving Israel's goals.

For example, she said, the Egyptian cooperation with Israel against Hamas was vital. Egypt understands that Hamas, Livni explained, is a common enemy and that helped the two authorities set up discussions with Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. She stressed on the importance of expanding this cooperation with Jordan and other countries.

The Times of Israel quoted Livni as saying that talks with the Palestinians have been and would remain about a Palestinian state "without full and complete sovereignty".

"Always, from the first day of the negotiations, it was clear that any agreement [on Palestinian statehood] would not include full and complete sovereignty," she said.

She continued: "We are speaking in terms of a sovereign Palestinian state, but it is clear that the sovereign Palestinian state must accept limitations. Certainly, demilitarisation."

"By the way," she said, "that is also what we are demanding now for Gaza. Limitations and arrangements that will ensure, in the long term, that no threat is created of the kind we have been witnessing."

The chief Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians said that Abbas had accepted the need for a demilitarised Palestinian state, "though there is an argument about what demilitarisation entails... That's why you negotiate".