Defense Minister: We can cope without PA security coordination

Liberman says Israel can cope without security coordination with the Palestinians and that it’s the Palestinians who will lose out.

On Sunday, Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman told Ynet News that Israel can cope without a working security arrangement with the Palestinian Authority (PA).

“We’ve managed for many years without security cooperation, we’ll manage now as well,” the Defense Minister asserted.

Liberman’s statement follows PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ announcement that he has canceled security coordination with Israel. This is the first time during Abbas’ leadership that the PA has made this decision.

The Israeli Defense Minister emphasized that the security coordination basically benefits the Palestinian Authority.

“It’s not that the security coordination is an Israeli need. Before our needs, it’s a Palestinian need first and foremost, and therefore if they want it, it will continue, if they don’t want it, they won’t. It’s their decision.”

In a speech in Ramallah on Friday, Abbas declared a freeze of all relations with the Jewish state, protesting against Israel’s decision to install metal detectors on the Temple Mount. Israel’s decision followed Muslim Arab violence and a terror attack that claimed the lives of two Israeli Druze Border Police officers.

On Saturday night, the defense minister demanded that Abbas publicly condemn the Palestinian terror attack that occurred the previous evening in the Jewish community of Halamish in Samaria, when three members of a single family were brutally murdered during their Sabbath meal.

It remains unclear what impact the PA’s frozen security coordination with Israel will have on the ground in Judea and Samaria, where, despite strained diplomatic relations between Ramallah and Jerusalem, IDF and PA forces have cooperated to an extent. Abbas, whose authority is threatened by Hamas, has previously stressed the importance of security ties with Israel.

By: Daniel Krygier, World Israel News