Livni: When Bar Ilan speech cannot be believed than neither can the Iran speech

After PM Netanyahu says he currently does not support the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state, Livni says the world has lost basic trust in him.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Tzipi Livni (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Tzipi Livni
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Zionist Union co-leader MK Tzipi Livni slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for rescinding his previously declared support for a demilitarized Palestinian state. Netanyahu stated his support for such a state at Bar Ilan University in 2009.
Livni told Israel Radio on Monday that Netanyahu gave everyone the impression that the negotiations with the Palestinians were serious. She said that the prime minister was doing what he did for years: making one speech and then taking it back and then announcing that in fact he wasn't taking it back.
"He talks but he won't evacuate, he talks but he will not agree, and the world has lost a basic trust in the prime minister and I say this regretfully."
Livni said Netanyahu has caused Israel to be isolated. 
"When the Bar Ilan speech cannot be believed, then the speech on Iran cannot be believed either," Livni said, referring to the speech on Iran that Netanyahu delivered to the US Congress last week.
Livni, who is number two on the Zionist Union list in the March 17 Knesset election, was the Israeli representative to the peace talks with the Palestinians that collapsed in April 2014.
The prime minister described his former position enunciated at Bar Ilan as "simply irrelevant" on Sunday.
“In the situation created in the Middle East, any territory that will be evacuated will be taken over by radical Islam and terrorist organizations supported by Iran,” Netanyahu said. “Therefore, there will not be any withdrawals or concessions. The matter is simply irrelevant.”
Also Sunday, Likud candidate Bennie Begin and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein held a press conference in Tel Aviv to deny Friday’s report by Yediot Aharonot columnist Nachum Barnea, accompanied by a front-page headline declaring he uncovered Netanyahu’s “document of concessions,” which included basing talks with the Palestinians on the pre-1967 lines with land swaps.
Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.