Naftali Bennett will hold a press conference at the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem on April 21, 2021.
(Yonatan Sindel / Flash90 through JTA)
- According to reports, the Israeli Minister of Defense and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had a rare meeting. According to reports, this was the first time in history.
- Sources said that peace talks are not at the negotiating table.
- Hamas condemned the meeting, accusing it of “intensifying the political division of Palestine.”
The Israeli Defense Minister held a rare high-level meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but sources close to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett insisted on Monday that the Israeli government has no plans to restart peace talks. .
Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with Abbas in Ramallah. It was reported that this was the first direct meeting between Israeli cabinet members and the 86-year-old Palestinian leader in years.
Gantz’s office said the focus of the meeting was “security policy, civil and economic issues,” and it was held a few hours after Bennett returned from Washington to meet with US President Joe Biden.
Biden stated that he would urge Bennett to find a way to “promote peace and security and prosperity for Israelis and Palestinians.”
According to a statement from the Ministry of Defense, Gantz told Abbas that Israel “seeks measures to strengthen the Palestinian Authority’s economy.”
“They also discussed shaping the security and economic situation in the West Bank and Gaza,” and agreed to “continue to communicate further,” it added.
A source close to Bennett said that the focus of the meeting he approved was “problems between defense agencies and the Palestinian Authority.”
The source, who requested anonymity, stated that under Bennett’s leadership, “the Palestinians have no peace process, nor will there be”.
The Gantz-Abbas meeting included Ghasan Alyan, the head of the Israeli military department responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, Hussein Al Sheikh, a senior Palestinian authority official, and Majid Faraj, the head of the Palestinian intelligence service.
Gantz’s office stated that he and Abbas had a “one-on-one meeting” after a broader meeting.
Al Sheikh confirmed the meeting on Twitter, but the PA could not immediately comment on its content.
Bennett, 49, took office in June as the head of an eclectic coalition in which his hawkish party holds only a few seats.
He was a long-time opponent of the founding of a Palestinian state and the former chairman of a committee that lobbied for Jewish settlers in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
According to international law, Jewish settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal.
However, despite Bennett’s personal views, his government has been trying to establish friendly relations with the Palestinian Authority, which has actually collapsed under the leadership of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from 2009 to He came to power in June this year.
Netanyahu is also a right-wing supporter who has long been vilified by the Palestinians. He has further alienated Abbas through a close embrace with former US President Donald Trump, who has been accused of extreme pro-Israel prejudice.
Fearing a new conflict with the Hamas Islamists who control the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and being a competitor of Abbas’s Fatah secular Fatah movement, the Bennett government expressed its desire to strengthen the Palestinian Authority.
In May of this year, Israeli and Palestinian militants clashed in the Gaza Strip for 11 days. This was the most serious hostilities in the region since 2014. Although Egypt has promoted a ceasefire, the unrest continued.
Hamas condemned the meeting between Abbas and Gantz, accusing it of “deepening the political divide in Palestine.”
Since his election in 2006, Abbas has strengthened his control of the Palestinian Authority.
He canceled elections originally scheduled for May and July, which will be the first poll of Palestinians in 15 years.
The senior leader cited Israel’s refusal to vote in annexed East Jerusalem, which is the future capital of the Palestinians.
But some Palestinian experts said that when Hamas was clearly prepared to defeat Fatah in the polls, Abbas hesitated.
Abbas’s Palestinian Authority has also received increasing criticism from around the world for allegedly suppressing the internal opposition after a prominent activist died in Palestinian custody.
Last week, the United Nations and the European Union expressed shock at a series of arrests against major critics of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.
