After PA President Abbas refused to publicly condemn the terror attack that killed senior police officer Baruch Mizrachi, Minister Yitchak Aharonovitch told Army Radio that he opposes extending the talks, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.
Minister of Internal Security Yitzhak Aharonovitch is in charge of the Israeli police.
With the loss of Aharonovitch’s support, PM Netanyahu no longer has a majority in his government in favor of extending talks with the PA.
Abbas supposedly condemned the attack in a private meeting with the radical left-wing political party Meretz, but he has refused to publicly condemn the attack in Arabic for consumption by his own people, or even publicly to the Israeli media. In fact, Abbas’s spokesman explicitly stated that Abbas did not condemn the attack, even in the private meeting.
The deal under discussion is that Israel will release more terrorists, like those that killed Baruch Mizrachi on the eve of Passover, the U.S. will commute Jonathan Pollard’s remaining prison sentence, and the Palestinian Authority will agree to extend the peace talks with Israel.
Releasing more terrorists, particularly Israeli-Arab terrorists is coming under heavy fire from within the government’s coalition.