Israel’s security brass: Abbas blocking Palestinian uprising -
While Netanyahu and his cabinet blame the Palestinian president for the recent Jerusalem terror wave, senior defense officials see him as the primary hope for mitigating the hostilities.
By Amos Harel | Nov. 24, 2014 Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.628118
f you compare the declarations made in recent days by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers to the assessments of the heads of the security services, you might get the impression that each group is operating in its own alternative reality, one totally divorced from that the of other group. While Netanyahu and his ministers are describing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as bearing the primary responsibility for the recent outbreak of terror in Jerusalem, senior defense officials still see him as the primary hope for preventing this confrontation from spreading throughout the West Bank.
After the Har Nof synagogue massacre last week, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett went so far as to call Abbas one of the greatest terrorists ever produced by the Palestinian people. Over the weekend, in a Channel 2 interview, Bennett called on Israel to stop talking about occupation and to launch an anti-terror offensive in Jerusalem and the territories. Bennett’s remarks about Abbas, like similar ones made by other ministers, were in sharp contrast to the declaration by Shin Bet security service head Yoram Cohen that Abbas is not encouraging terror, overtly or covertly.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon tried to bridge this gap by arguing that Cohen’s remarks to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee were leaked to the media in a distorted fashion for political reasons. Ya’alon added: “Abu Mazen [Abbas] fears the possibility of terror in the West Bank because he understands that he will be deposed by it. On the other hand, one cannot ignore his incitement with regard to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. There is no contradiction here: On the one hand, Abbas is not masterminding terror. On the other hand, [he] is inciting violence in Jerusalem.”
The heads of the security services are less critical of Abbas. Somewhat unusually, there is a broad consensus among them; they are categorically against collective punishment in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and oppose bringing Israel Defense Forces soldiers into the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem (something Bennett is demanding outright), while agreeing that the religious component of the conflict – the dispute over the Temple Mount, but also the inspiration coming from the Islamic State’s atrocities – is gaining weight, though it hasn’t overwhelmed the Palestinian anger over the continuing occupation.