Friday, January 29, 2010

Labor Minister Herzog: 'Netanyahu's peace intentions may surprise Abbas'

(Haaretz).Labor Party minister Isaac Herzog said Wednesday that he had chosen to join Benjamin Netanyahu's predominantly right-wing government after he became convinced during a private conversation with the prime minister that Netanyahu had a sincere desire to achieve peace with the Palestinians.

Herzog called on Palestinian leadership to put the prime minister to the test, saying that, "if President [Mahmoud] Abbas would sit with Prime Minister Netanyahu in a closed room, he may be surprised."

Herzog's comments came during a conference by the Palestine-Israel Journal to mark the launch of three European Union-funded policy papers on three core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and their impact on the two-state solution.