A new Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should focus on domestic issues rather than on reviving frozen peace talks with Palestinians, a top ally of the right-wing leader said Thursday.
"We are not willing to accept any dictations on the issue of a freeze," former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio.
"There won't be a freeze, not in Jerusalem and not in Judea and Samaria," he added, using the Biblical terms for the West Bank.
He made the comments as final results showed right-wing and religious parties had a one-seat majority in the 120-seat parliament.
Peace talks have been frozen since September 2010 after Netanyahu refused a demand by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to extend a partial 10-month settlement freeze in the West Bank. Netanyahu has said he is ready to negotiate without conditions.
Lieberman said a Netanyahu-led government would focus on socio-economic issues, which were a main theme in the election and gave rise to a new, centrist party that campaigned on a platform of
reducing the high cost of living.
Yair Lapid, a former television anchorman whose Yesh Atid party came in second with 19 seats, has emerged as a key player in future coalition talks. He wants to scrap exemption from military service for ultra-Orthodox Jews and to renew peace talks with Palestinians.
"The agenda must be to first of all deal with internal problems," Lieberman said.
"At the end of the day, we really want to reach here an agreement for peace," he added. "But if the other side doesn't want this, that's its problem."
Netanyahu's previous coalition government included right-wing and nationalist parties opposed to a settlement freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land the Palestinians want for a future state.
Lieberman added that Netanyahu's Likud-Beteinu, Yesh Atid, and the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home, which came in fourth with 12 seats, could find common ground by agreeing to reduce the cost of living, and ending blanket military service exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a close aide to Abbas, said Thursday that the Palestinians would not resume talks unless Israel stopped settlement building, accepted the two-state solution and withdrew from all the territories it occupied in a 1967 Middle East war.
A representative of Yesh Atid told Israel Radio that reviving the peace process was one of the three conditions under which his party would join a Netanyahu-led government.
"Without peace negotiations, we will not join the government," said Rabbi Shai Prion.