Avi Dichter, former head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, has been following Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for years. He did so initially as an intelligence officer and in recent years as a politician in the Kadima Party and subsequently in the Likud. Now, as US-mediated negotiations with the PLO are nearing their moment of truth, Dichter is observing events from the outside, having failed to make the Likud’s Knesset list in the party's last primaries.
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Dichter deflected claims and intimations by the left wing that time is running out, and that Abbas is the last Palestinian leader who can sign an agreement with Israel. “That’s nonsense,” Dichter asserts. “Abu Mazen [Abbas] has created such an illusion — that after him there’s only a cliff — and in Israel, even the most senior figures have adopted this. Who decided this? It’s an illusion.”
