Israel Matzav

Minister: 'Abbas has less control over Palestinians than Assad has over Syria

I sure hope Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz has a Twitter account, because the headline of this post would have made (and is making on my Twitter account) a great tweet.

"Just as nobody would seriously consider giving Assad land in his current situation, it is impossible to seriously think about transferring the control of territories to the Palestinians," Katz said prior to entering the weekly cabinet meeting.

Katz added that the Israeli public was skeptical about the negotiations "because it sees the position of Abu Mazen [Abbas] and what is happening in the region."

"There are 1.5 million Palestinians under Hamas control that oppose this peace process," Katz stated.

So Transportation Minister Katz is opposed to making 'gestures' and concessions to enter into talks with the 'Palestinians'? Err... no....

He said that despite the fact that he did not think the peace talks had a good chance of yielding a realistic agreement, he still supported entering negotiations to improve Israel's strategic position.

How will making more concessions that will just become the new starting line for the next round of 'negotiations' improve Israel's strategic position? What could go wrong?

Labels: Abu Mazen, Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, Middle East peace process, negotiations without preconditions

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:04 PM