Differences over Palestinian statehood are likely to scupper Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to forge a broad government with his main rival, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, an official of his Likud party said on Thursday. The hawkish Netanyahu, tapped by Israel's president to try to form a governing coalition, planned to meet Livni on Friday in another attempt to recruit her centrist Kadima party, which backs the Palestinians' quest for a state. Netanyahu, head of the right-wing Likud party, wants to shift the focus of US-sponsored peace talks from thorny territorial issues that would set the boundaries of a state to shoring up the Palestinian economy. He has said any Palestinian state must have only limited sovereignty and be demilitarised. “There is across-the-board agreement on Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas but there is a big gap between Kadima and Likud on the two states for two people. It's unsolvable,” Silvan Shalom, a senior Likud legislator and former foreign minister, told Army Radio. Livni has said Kadima would not join a government that does not commit clearly to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians in the outgoing government, Livni has been at the forefront of a land-for-peace process whose declared aims are to achieve a viable Palestinian state and security for Israel. “Unfortunately the answers we are receiving from Kadima leaders is that there is no chance of her changing her position. And it seems that tomorrow she will say a final ‘no',” Silvan Shalom told Israeli Army Radio. Asked about Shalom's remarks, a Kadima spokeswoman said Livni's position was unchanged. US President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, was to hold talks later in the day in Israel with Netanyahu and leaders of the outgoing government on ways to revive peace talks. He will also visit the occupied West Bank. Kadima won 28 of parliament's 120 seats, to the Likud's 27, in a Feb. 10 election. But a strong nationalist bloc emerged from the ballot and Netanyahu has the support of 65 right-wing lawmakers, enough to form a narrow government. A right-wing coalition could lead to friction with the Obama administration, which has pledged to move swiftly towards an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Under his mandate from President Shimon Peres, Netanyahu has another 36 days to win parliamentary approval for a government.
