“We don’t have to agree with one another, we just have to talk,” Abbas told the Meretz delegation. It included party head and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Frej and Meretz faction head MK Michal Rozin.
Meretz politicians have visited Abbas in the past when they were in the opposition, but this is the first time they have done so as members of the government.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz has also visited Abbas, but the question of whether to speak with the Palestinian leader is a divisive one within the government.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of the right-wing Yamina party and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party have no interest in speaking with Abbas.
According to Barak Ravid of Hebrew web site Walla, Abbas specifically mentioned his interest in speaking with Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked is seen speaking at the Knesset, on July 5, 2021. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
“It won’t happen,” she flatly wrote.
“I won’t meet a Holocaust denier who is suing Israel soldiers at The Hague and paying murderers of Jews,” Shaked tweeted.
“Good night,” she added.
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