JAKARTA - Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday, August 30 attempted to play down the idea of a step towards new peace negotiations with the Palestinians after the highest-level Israeli-Palestinian meetings took place in years.
Hours after Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met, Israel's main media platform quoted "a source close to the prime minister" as saying, "There is no diplomatic process with the Palestinian people, and there never will be."
The previously unannounced session covered only "routine issues", according to the source. Hussein Al Sheikh, a member of Abbas's Fatah Central Committee, said the discussions covered "all aspects" of Palestinian-Israeli relations.
Gantz, who heads the center party, and Abbas met two days after Bennett met US President Joe Biden in Washington. Bennett is an ultra-right politician who rejects Palestinian statehood.
A statement from the White House said Biden told Bennett his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and "underlined the importance of steps to improve the lives of Palestinians".
Bennett did not mention Palestine in a public statement while at the White House. His speech largely focused on Iran's nuclear program, which is the country's arch-enemy.
Gantz has in the past called for the peace process with Palestine to be restarted. Palestinians aspire to establish a state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Middle East war.
However, any new movement on the issue could shake the foundations of Bennett's government, which is made up of left, right, center and Arab parties. The coalition in June ended Benjamin Netanyahu's 12-year term as prime minister.
In a sign of friction over Palestinian statehood from within the coalition, Mossi Raz, a legislator from the left-wing Meretz party, said the rejection of the prospect of renewed peace talks by Bennett's sources was "outrageous".
"The peace process is in Israel's interest," Raz wrote on Twitter.
The statement from Gantz's office made no mention of peace, saying only that he and Abbas discussed the security and economic situation in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, an enclave run by Abbas's rival, the Hamas group.
The meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah marked the first time Israeli-Palestinian talks at high-level officials have been held since US-brokered peace negotiations collapsed in 2014.
Sources quoted by Israeli media said Bennett had given Gantz the green light to meet with Abbas.
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