Thursday, March 25, 2010

EXCLUSIVE: Intelligence agencies: Kadima Chair Ramon working with PA to obstruct the start of peace negotiations

(Matti Tuchfeld-Israel Hayom).Kadima Council Chairman Haim Ramon is working to sabotage the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians — say high-ranking political officials.

The senior officials say that according to information recently obtained by intelligence agencies that was placed on the desk of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak, Ramon is working with senior PA officials to prevent negotiations from being launched between Jerusalem and Ramallah. According to this information, PA sources confirmed this. It was also said that other figures in Kadima might be partners Ramon’s activity. Political sources say that Ramon has been urging Palestinian and European figures to wait for Kadima to come to power, saying that this would make it possible to launch negotiations under better conditions for them.

Likud sources recently said that Ramon is surrounded by a number of people with whom he maintains close friendships. Some of them want the Netanyahu government to fall, and the actions of the [former] MK serve these friends in one way or another. Among the figures who could benefit from the fall of the government: Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes, former minister Aryeh Deri and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. MK Ramon denied this, but a senior Kadima member confirmed the details last night. “Ramon has been engaged in intrigues in the Palestinian Authority and is preventing the start of the peace negotiations to the best of his ability,” a senior Kadima source said yesterday, “he believes that this will topple Netanyahu.”

Ramon said in response, “woe to a country whose leaders, through the ‘Bibi-paper’ known as Israel Hayom, disseminate unsubstantiated nonsense in a desperate attempt to excuse the fact that the prime minister and the defense minister have caused Israel to sink to the deepest diplomatic low in many years.” Sources in Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s bureau said that “this is delusional and untrue.” Sources in Peace Now, who were apparently the ones who conveyed the report to the media about the construction in Sheikh Jarrah, said that they did not work in coordination with Ramon on the matter. MK Ophir Akunis of the Likud said yesterday that “there are clear indications that Kadima and its advisers played a major role in publicizing the construction in Jerusalem.” […]