‘I want to be the next Rabin,’ Gantz reportedly told PA leader Abbas

“I want to be the new Rabin but in this government there are limits,” Gantz reportedly told Abbas.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

During a controversial August meeting with Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas, Defense Minster Benny Gantz said that peace between Israel and the Palestinians is a huge priority for the current government, adding that he was ready to be the next Yitzhak Rabin.

According to Channel 12, Gantz made dovish overtures to the embattled leader, who 80 percent of Palestinians think should resign due to widespread corruption and the recent killing of a political activist, which sparked protests across PA-controlled cities.

“I believe in the two-state solution and believe it is the appropriate solution,” Gantz reportedly announced to Abbas.

“I want to be the new Rabin but in this government there are limits,” he said, referencing the former Israeli general who signed the 1994 Oslo Accords with Yasser Arafat, and was slain not long afterwards.

Gantz’s office released a laconic statement in response to the report. The quotes were “not exact,” said a spokesperson, who demurred from commenting further.

Abbas reportedly played hardball with Gantz, just a week after a fiery speech at the U.N. in which he called for international intervention to stop Jewish building in Judea and Samaria and to pressure Israel into reentering peace negotiations.

“If the current government doesn’t want to accept the two-state solution on the basis of the 1967 borders, we will act to advance another solution — the 1947 Partition Plan,” Abbas allegedly said to Gantz.

The unprecedented meeting between Israel’s highest ranking security official and the Palestinian president triggered outrage from right-wing politicians and commentators.

“It is a shame that the Defense Minister of the State of Israel meets with a terrorist who heads the Palestinian Authority, which finances terrorism, gives a reward to murderers of Jews, and names [public] squares after them,” said Religious Zionism MK Itamar Ben Gvir.

Religious Zionism party chair Betzalel Smotrich said that the media’s handling of Bennett with kid gloves is a clear indication that he is not a true right-wing politician.

“Many things can be said about the Israeli media. It is not a sucker… and it is a supporter of retreats and submission to terrorism,” he wrote on Twitter.

“The last prime minister to be supported by the media as Bennett is now was Arik Sharon during the expulsion [of Jews] from Gush Katif and northern Samaria. This scares me. Very much.”

The meeting was also criticized by some Palestinians.

“President Mahmoud Abbas’s meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz is a stab in the back of the Palestinian people and what they have sacrificed. It is a betrayal of the blood of the martyrs,” Hamas spokesperson Abd al-Latif al-Qanou said in a statement.

Benny GantzMahmoud AbbasYitzhak Rabin