PA Collapse Will Be 'Catastrophe,' Says Knesset Labor Leader
“If the Palestinian Authority collapses, we will all regret it,” says Knesset Member Isaac Herzog, the Labor Party’s number two, in an interview with Mazal Mualem.
Knesset Member Isaac (Buji) Herzog, head of the Labor faction in the Knesset, is worried. Last week [February 4] he travelled to Ramallah to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Herzog arrived at Fayyad’s chambers accompanied by a retinue of Palestinian policemen, sat with Fayyad for more than an hour, and returned with the strong sense that if negotiations with the Palestinians are not renewed in the very near future — all the sides will be sorry.
In an interview with Al-Monitor he tells us about his meeting with Fayyad and promises that the Labor Party will support the diplomatic process even from the opposition. Herzog joins the growing chorus of voices in the political system who believe that it will be very hard to reach a final-status agreement with the Palestinians in the near future, thus we should aim for an interim agreement. Some examples of politicians who share this vision, are former Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (who is evidently coordinated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz.
![Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Arens and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a news conference in Tel Aviv February 28. Arens said fighter planes had already raided key Hizbollah targets in Lebanon. The Israeli assault came in response to a roadside bomb that went off near an Israeli convoy in the south Lebanon occupation zone killing [Brigadier-General Erez Gerstein,] and a Radio Journalist and two soldiers.
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