Right-wing Israeli and Palestinian officials alike expressed outrage on Monday over news that Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday.
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It was the highest-level meeting between Abbas and an Israeli minister to be made public since Israel's new government was formed in June.
Sources in the Prime Minister's Office stressed Monday that "the meeting was approved by the prime minister ahead of time and sought to focus on defense issues concerning Israel and the PA. There are no negotiations with the Palestinians, nor will there be."
Israeli lawmakers fumed over Gantz's meeting with Abbas, who they called a "Holocaust denier and terrorist," while Hamas attacked Abbas for "stabbing the Palestinian people in the back" by taking the meeting.
Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanua said, "Abbas' meeting with the criminal Zionist minister of War Ganz is a stab in the back of our people and a betrayal of the blood of the shahids [martyrs].
"Abbas continues the series of concessions with regard to the [Palestinian] national existence and tries to beautify the face of the occupation."
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri issued a similar statement saying, "Mahmoud Abbas' meeting with the minister of the occupation's army is dangerous and reflects the PA's contempt for Palestinian blood, and the escalation of its security cooperation with the occupation."
Right-wing Israeli lawmakers also lashed out at Gantz.
Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich slammed the defense minister for "meeting with a man who denies the Holocaust, who pays salaries to terrorists and is suing him and the State of Israel in The Hague.
"Israeli society does not understand the potential damage this event can inflict on the diplomatic level," he warned.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, called the meeting "a disgrace."
The Israeli Left welcomed the news of the meeting, with Meretz MK Deputy Economy Minister Yair Golan– a former deputy IDF chief of staff – saying, "The defense minister's meeting with the head of the Palestinian Authority is an encouraging sign and another expression of the positive change that the new government brings with it.
"The complexity of the conflict must be resolved through dialogue - this is the right Zionist act."
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