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PA wants Livni and Obama The veteran terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization is hoping for a double whammy in its favor next month when it hopes Israel will come under the prime ministership of Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni and Americans will put Barack Obama in the White House.

There are signs that Fatah is preparing to launch a major operation against Hamas in the West Bank in the coming weeks ahead of expected turmoil when Mahmoud Abbas's term as PA president ends in January, a top IDF officer has told The Jerusalem Post. Abbas's presidential term is scheduled to end on January 9, and the IDF Central Command is preparing for the possibility that Hamas will try to take advantage of political instability in Ramallah to take over West Bank towns and cities. In the absence of elections or a compromise with Hamas, according to the Palestinian Authority...

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday said that the recent peace offer made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is enough to get a final status agreement signed, but recognized that the outgoing Israeli leader does not have the ability to implement the proposal. “We could have peace in two days” if Olmert’s offer could be implemented, Abbas told a group of Muslim clerics at the tail end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

First it was Hamas, now it is the Western-backed Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas that is using beloved Disney characters to lure Palestinian Arab children who are then taught that terrorist violence against Israeli Jews is the highest achievement. In a similar way that American children are raised by pop culture to believe that becoming a movie star or professional athlete is the pinnacle of social achievement, Arab children currently tuning in to Palestinian Authority TV are being taught that deceased anti-Israel terrorists are their society’s greatest heroes.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the weekend invited the international community to help him and the Palestinian Arabs divide the city of Jerusalem between them as part of a final status peace deal. According to the proposal, major international powers like the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations would be asked to act as official advisors in the process of partitioning the Israeli capital.

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel's cabinet voted on Sunday to release about 200 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to president Mahmud Abbas aimed at bolstering slow-moving US-backed Middle East peace talks. The August 25 release will coincide with a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed at encouraging the negotiations, which have shown little visible sign of progress since they were revived in November. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev called the move a "confidence-building measure" towards Abbas, adding: "We hope the release will help strengthen the peace process." The list, which will be considered for final...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday rejected an Israeli peace proposal, which included withdrawal from 93 percent of the West Bank, because it does not provide for a contiguous Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Nabil Abu Rdainah, Abbas's spokesman, told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan showed a "lack of seriousness." Under the proposal, Israel would return to the Palestinians 93 percent of the West Bank, plus all of the Gaza Strip, when the Palestinian Authority regains control over the Gaza Strip, which the militant group Hamas seized from forces loyal to...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has offered the Palestinian Authority a preliminary final status peace agreement that would see Israel surrender 93 percent of Judea and Samaria. Ha’aretz learned that Olmert presented the deal when he met last week with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and is still waiting on a reply from the Palestinian side. The offer also includes surrendering a small area of Israel’s Negev desert to the Palestinians to make up for the 7 percent of the so-called “West Bank” where large Jewish towns today exist that Israel would retain.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday refused to grant West Bank asylum to followers who fled the fighting with rivals Hamas in Gaza Strip. Abbas ordered some 200 fighters back to Gaza Strip from Israel, insisting a Fatah presence must be retained in the Hamas-led territory. The wrangling over the fate of the 188 Fatah refugees came a day after 11 people were killed and dozens wounded during a Hamas raid on a Fatah stronghold in Gaza City. The escape posed a dilemma for Abbas. "Fatah officials in Gaza should stay in their posts and should not leave Gaza to...

The Palestinian Authority is facing a severe financial crisis due to the failure of donor countries to fulfill their pledges to fund the Palestinians, PA officials in Ramallah said Monday. The officials told The Jerusalem Post that the PA wouldn't be able to pay July salaries to more than 150,000 public servants and may be forced to close down several government institutions as a result of the deepening crisis. The officials disclosed that the deficit in the PA budget has risen in the past six months from $1.6 billion to $2b. "We are facing a real crisis," a top PA...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has appealed to a number of Arab countries to consider dispatching troops to the Gaza Strip, PA officials said. Abbas, who met in Cairo Sunday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said an Arab peacekeeping force would help "restore law and order" to the Gaza Strip and pave the way for ending the Fatah-Hamas schism, the officials told The Jerusalem Post. However, Egypt did not appear to be "excited" about sending soldiers to Gaza, the officials said. A senior Hamas official in the Strip rejected Abbas's initiative and warned that his movement would not allow soldiers...

Reputedly moderate Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas is reported to have sent greetings to Samir Kuntar, the Lebanese terrorist freed in last week’s Israel-Hizbullah exchange who in a 1979 attack killed a 28-year-old Israeli man in front of his 4-year-old daughter and then killed the girl by smashing her head. Abbas was on a visit to Malta at the time and was under no known pressure to issue his tidings. Even if he was – Samir Kuntar being popular among Abbas’s Fatah Party, which held a rally in Ramallah to laud his release and that of the remains of Palestinian...

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama tried to say all the right things Wednesday, affirming that as president he would preserve the close relationship between Washington and Jerusalem, and pledged that Israel's security would be a top priority in his administration. "I'm here on this trip to reaffirm the special relationship between Israel and the United States and my abiding commitment to Israel's security and my hope that I can serve as an effective partner, whether as a U.S. senator or as president," Obama said during a meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres. Obama had a packed day of meetings with...

Here's a question Barack Obama might want to ask Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas when they meet in the Middle East next week: How could you, Mr. President, join in the unseemly celebration of a child murderer as a "hero"? There's not much chance of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee posing such an impolitic question during his get-together with Abbas in Ramallah on the West Bank. Yet it goes to the heart of the culture of the Palestinian side of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to the hopes of eventually achieving a lasting peace deal. The child murderer is Samir Kuntar,...

Israeli President Shimon Peres, the primary proponent of Israel’s land-for-peace process with the Palestinian Authority, very pragmatically announced at a dinner party last weekend that he no longer believes a genuine peace can be achieved.

A senior Palestinian Authority official on Thursday said the regime of US-backed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is pulling for Democratic candidate Barack Obama to win the upcoming US presidential election. PA Planning Minister Samir Abdullah told reporters on a visit to Tokyo that the assumption in Ramallah is that Obama will win the election, and once inaugurated will immediately set in motion the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian Arab state on the biblical Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria.

Abbas calls for talks with Hamas government, denounces Obama's remarks on Jerusalem News agencies YNET Published: 06.04.08, 22:00 / Israel News www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3552088,00.html Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Wednesday for renewed dialogue with Hamas. This followed months of his insisting that Hamas must first relinquish control of Gaza. Abbas gave a broadcast speech to his people on Wednesday evening. Referring to the latest attempt to bridge the rift, he called for "a national dialogue to implement the Yemeni initiative in all its elements, to end the internal division that harms our people, (our) cause." Abbas said if the talks succeed, "I...

There is a Greek tragedy unfolding today in the Middle East. In response to past mistakes and as a result of hubristic political calculation, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is setting in motion forces that promise to lead inexorably to grief for his nation. The result could be staticide, the destruction of the Jewish State, with incalculably serious repercussions for the Free World in general and the United States in particular.

I just talked to someone in the government who will go nameless. We talked about Syria and the negotiations. Underlying the recent announcement of direct talks is the belief that Syria is making or is prepared to make a strategic decision to switch horses from the Iranians to the American. I suggested that Syria has resisted enormous US pressure for years and the radical axis seems to be winning so why change now. It may well be that both Syria and Israel have tactical reasons for going public, it is also true that Israel is hoping and waiting for a...

US president presses on with Mideast tour, meets with Egypt's Mubarak in Sham el-Sheikh. Due to speak at World Economic Forum on Sunday, Bush says he will outline vision for reaching agreement on future Palestinian state while still in office US President George W. Bush said on Saturday he remained confident a deal on Palestinian statehood could be achieved before he leaves office, as he sought to ease Arab doubts about his commitment to even-handed peacemaking. In the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for the final stop of his Middle East tour, Bush faces growing skepticism over his chances...

AFTER THE war, the US was given an opportunity to actually support democratic, anti-Iranian-Syrian forces in Lebanon by supporting the Saniora government when Hizbullah abruptly bolted the ruling coalition and backed by Iran and Syria attempted to take control of the government by assassination and terror. The US could have taken action against Syria or Iran. But instead it sought to appease Iran and Syria in the hopes that they would temper their support for insurgents in Iraq. The pinnacle of this US abandonment of the March 14 movement was Rice's decision to invite Syria to participate in her peace...

U.S. President George W. Bush called for Israel and the Palestinians to agree on clearly defined outlines for a Palestinian state, a day before he begins a landmark visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. "What has to happen in order for there to be a peaceful settlement of a long-standing dispute is there to be outlines of a state clearly defined," Bush said at the White House. "So that at some point in time, the Palestinians who agree that Israel ought to exist and agree that the state ought to live side-by-side with Israel in peace have something to...

Jordan's King Abdullah II told President George W. Bush on Wednesday that stalled negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis should be based on "clear grounds and fixed timetables." Bush, beginning two days of Mideast diplomacy at the White House, met with the king over breakfast. It was a quick session; the king arrived and left within an hour. Later, Abdullah greeted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who also came to Washington to see Bush. They will meet on Thursday. The Palestinians and Israelis remain far apart on peace negotiations, and Abbas is seeking US help to move things forward, his spokesman...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed that plans to present two female Palestinian terrorists with a medal of honor have been withdrawn. Abbas informed Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik of the decision in a telephone call from Moscow late Wednesday. The Al Kuds Mark of Honor, the PLO's highest medal, was meant be awarded in a ceremony in Ramallah Thursday to two female terrorists who helped kill Israelis. The terrorists' families were slated to receive the honors in their stead. Abbas informed Itzik that the awards for the two terrorists, as well as for other Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, had been...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has offered the Palestinians 64 percent of the West Bank as part of a future peace agreement, London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported Wednesday. According to the report, Olmert told PA President Mahmoud Abbas that the Palestinians could "forget about territory west of the security fence." The prime minister also presented Abbas with several offers regarding Jerusalem. One of these would have Israel maintaining control over east Jerusalem and holy sites, but allowing Palestinians to enter those sites.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- A Mideast peace agreement will require "painful concessions" by Israelis and Palestinians who must work together to defeat those "committed to violence," Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday. After meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Cheney stressed the U.S. commitment to the creation of an independent Palestinian state, saying it was "long overdue." "Achieving that vision will require tremendous effort at the negotiating table and painful concessions on both sides," said Cheney, whose stop in Ramallah came just two months after President Bush's trip to the West Bank. Abbas, a moderate, controls the West Bank...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney, starting a visit on Saturday to try to push forward Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, said Washington would never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security. Palestinians accuse Israel of undermining the U.S.-sponsored peace talks by expanding Jewish settlements, refusing to remove West Bank roadblocks and mounting offensives against militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip who fire cross-border rockets into the Jewish state. "America's commitment to Israel's security is enduring and unshakable, as is Israel's right to protect itself always against terrorism, rocket attacks and other attacks from forces dedicated to Israel's destruction,"...

Newly declassified documents show a number of links between the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and violent terrorist or Islamist groups, many of them dating from the early 1990s. A Pentagon-funded study of the documents failed to find a direct link between Saddam and al Qaeda, the group that carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. But it did establish Iraqi support for Egyptian Islamic Jihad, whose leader Ayman al-Zawahri merged the group with al Qaeda years later. The papers also show that Saddam's Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained a working relationship with Palestinian terrorist groups, secretly...

Abbas, America’s Terrorist in the Middle East   By P. David HornikFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, March 19, 2008 “Our people in Jerusalem are under an ethnic cleansing campaign. They are suffering from a series of decisions like tax hikes and construction prohibitions. [Palestinians] are facing a campaign of annihilation [by Israel].” Those were the words of Mahmoud Abbas last week to the summit of Islamic countries in Dakar, Senegal. And what a crew it was; Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chimed in, using rhetoric about the same as that of Abbas, with “[Israel] just kills innocent women and children, but the...

Palestinian Media Watch continues blowing the whistle on the shell game being played by so-called “moderate” Palestinian Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, as the official Fatah daily newspaper publishes article after article glorifying mass murdering arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh. Senior Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh has been placed on a pedestal of glory in various articles in the official Palestinian Authority Fatah daily. Western countries have expressed virtually unanimous relief that the terrorist, wanted by 42 countries and on the FBI’s most wanted list, was killed by a car bomb in Damascus on February 12, 2008. The Palestinian Authority, on the other hand,...

"Our people in Jerusalem are under an ethnic cleansing campaign," Abbas said in a speech. "They are suffering from a series of decisions like tax hikes and construction prohibitions." U.S. State Department spokesman replied, "...it's probably an example of some overheated political rhetoric."

Palestinian Authority president accuses Israel of 'imposing heavy taxes, banning construction and closing Palestinian institutions' in Arab East Jerusalem at summit in Senegal; Israeli spokesman: Abbas hurting peace process with inflammatory statements Reuters Published: 03.13.08, 17:04 / Israel News Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing" in Arab East Jerusalem by banning the building of Palestinian homes and cutting the city off from the occupied West Bank. Abbas told a summit of the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), being held in Senegal's capital Dakar, the success of US-brokered peace talks depended on Israel showing...

Palestinian Authority condemns killing of four terrorists, says 'crime exposes Israel's mask' Roee Nahmias Published: 03.12.08, 23:30 / Israel News Abbas lashes out at Israel: A spokesman on behalf of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' office condemned the IDF operation Wednesday that left four senior terrorists dead in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. "This barbaric crime exposes the fake mask on Israel's face," the statement said, while slamming the Jewish State for "talking about peace but committing daily crimes, murders, and executions against our people." The harsh Palestinian Authority statement claimed that complaints made by the Israeli government were "bogus"...

Chief Palestinian negotiator strongly condemns Israeli plans to build hundreds of homes in the West Bank and disputed east Jerusalem, says appealed to US to pressure Israeli into halting the projects Associated Press Published: 03.09.08, 23:08 / Israel News Israeli plans to build hundreds of homes in the West Bank and disputed east Jerusalem drew harsh Palestinian condemnation Sunday, just days before a visit by a US general to monitor the troubled peace process. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he had appealed to the Bush Administration to pressure Israel to halt the projects. "Why do they insist on doing...

White House urges Israel, PA to keep negotiations going despite attack on Jerusalem yeshiva. 'The most important thing is that the peace process continues,' says White House spokesman Reuters Published: 03.07.08, 19:17 / Israel News The White House on Friday urged Israel and the Palestinians to stick with US-backed peace efforts despite a shooting attack that killed eight students at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem. "The most important thing is that the peace process continue and that the parties are committed to it," White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters. Thursday's attack by a Palestinian gunman dealt another blow...

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pushed hard Tuesday to resume Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, despite the chaos and violence of a week that saw both Palestinian and Israeli civilians killed. Walking away from talks plays into the hands of militants, Rice said. She blamed Palestinian Hamas radicals for provoking an Israeli military onslaught in the Gaza Strip. The campaign has derailed an already troubled U.S-backed drive for peace terms this year. "Negotiations are going to have to be able to withstand the efforts of rejectionists to upset them, to create chaos and violence, so that people react...

It is a commonplace of the modern Middle East that whenever Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is faced with a tough choice, he will invariably go for the easy option. Having accepted the position of president of what remained of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority following the 2006 elections, it was incumbent on Mr Abbas to exert his authority over all the territory under his command. In particular, he needed to face up to the challenge presented by Hamas's surprise victory in the elections. Tired of the culture of corruption that had characterised Mr Arafat's Fatah movement, the majority of Palestinians made...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Sunday slapped down international condemnation of his country’s self-defense action against Gaza’s terrorists, saying no-one has the right to tell Israel how to fight a moral war.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas labeled Israel's actions to counter the constant firing of rockets into the Gaza Strip "worse than the Holocaust." Abbas said that Israel's response to the continuous bombardment of western Negev towns by Palestinian terrorists was too severe, saying that its operations which have left at least 80 Palestinians dead on Saturday were unacceptable retaliation to the firing of rockets. The Fatah head was not the only Palestinian leader to be associating the military maneuvers with the Holocaust - exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal described the operations as "the real Holocaust" on Saturday afternoon. "Israeli actions...

PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday said that he does not rule out returning to the path of armed "resistance" against Israel and took pride in the fact that he had been the first to fire on Israel and that his organization had trained Hizbullah. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. "I had the honor to fire the first shot." Photo: AP In an interview with the Jordanian daily al-Dustur, Abbas said that he was opposed to an armed struggle against Israel - for the time being. "At this present juncture, I am opposed to the armed struggle because we can't...

RAMALLAH — Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas plans to replace his security detail with those trained by the United States. PA sources said Abbas has been discussing the replacement of his personal security force with the Bush administration. They said the PA chairman wants a U.S. contractor to train his bodyguards in Western techniques and in the use of advanced equipment. "Abu Mazen [Abbas] was very impressed by the security around President [George] Bush during his visit to Ramallah [in January 2008]," a PA source said. "Abbas has already discussed this with senior U.S. officials." The sources said Abbas, opposed...

JAFFA, Israel – A representative of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas praised Hezbollah deputy commander Imad Mughniyah as a hero after the report today of the most-wanted terrorist leader's death in a car bomb blast in Syria. Abbas Zakki, the ambassador to Lebanon for the PA president's Fatah organization, called Mughniyah a "hero and a loss for the Palestinian people and the Muslim nation." "We mourn with our brothers in Hezbollah this great leader who died today," Zakki said on Hezbollah's Al Manar TV as screened and translated by WND. Zakki said he is "proud that Mughniyah was part of...

PA glorifies Dimona terrorists | Jerusalem Post, PA glorifies Dimona terrorists. By YADID BERMAN ... granting them Islam's highest honor, clearly contradicts Abbas's condemnation of the terror attack. ... The terrorists who perpetrated Monday's suicide bombing in Dimona were glorified in three newspapers controlled by the Palestinian Authority, including the official Al-Hayat al-Jadida which is controlled by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Media Watch reported Wednesday. "The perpetrators of the operation died as shahids ... an Israeli was killed and eleven were wounded in the Dimona operation," Al-Hayat al-Jadida reported on February 5... http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1202246334919&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Sometimes, Israelis must shake their head in wonder at the folly of their friends and enemies alike. After Egypt failed to close the Rafah crossing that Hamas blew open last week, the US, EU, and Egypt put their heads together -- and decided to let Mahmoud Abbas give it a try: Israel will not stand in the way of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas taking control of Gaza's breached border with Egypt as part of a deal to sideline Hamas Islamists who rule the enclave, officials said on Tuesday. But it is unclear how Abbas, the Fatah leader, would be able...

The Palestinian Authority has warned the Egyptians against striking a deal with Hamas over controlling the Rafah border crossing separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt, a senior PA official in Ramallah said Monday. The official told The Jerusalem Post that the warning, which came on the eve of the visit of a high-level Hamas delegation to Cairo for talks on the issue of the border, was delivered to the Egyptians by the PA leadership in the past 48 hours. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who is scheduled to visit Cairo Wednesday, will reiterate his opposition to giving Hamas any role at...

A short-lived "honeymoon" between Fatah and Hamas ended abruptly Saturday when the Islamist movement accused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's office of being behind an attempt to assassinate Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Photo: AP [file] The charges came just as Fatah and Hamas appeared to be close to launching negotiations over solving their dispute. Relations between the two parties warmed up after Abbas phoned Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar last week to offer his condolences over the death of his son, Husam, in an IDF operation in Gaza...

Estranged Fatah leader Farouk Kaddoumi is demanding an inquiry into the fate of $2b. that allegedly went missing after the death of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, sources close to Kaddoumi said over the weekend. Kaddoumi, who is based in Tunis, has long been at loggerheads with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and most of the Fatah leaders in Ramallah. The sources quoted Kaddoumi as saying that at least five top Fatah leaders were responsible for the disappearance of the $2b., but did not name them. Kaddoumi's charges came amid growing turmoil in Fatah, which is witnessing renewed bickering between...

GEORGE W. Bush will set a new presidential record on his Middle East grand tour, visiting at least 10 countries in a short period. In some, he'll be the first US president to make a state visit. But what is the visit for? Cynics would suggest that Bush is looking for photo opportunities that might add some spice to his future memoirs. More generous commentators might see the tour as the continuation of an American tradition: All US presidents since Woodrow Wilson have dreamed of themselves as peacemakers and tried to help others sort out ancient disputes. Both assessments may...

4,000 PA "security men" will provide security for U.S. President George Bush's visit to Ramallah Thursday. The PA gunmen will spread out in the roads leading to the place where Bush and PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas will meet. The commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Brig. Gen. Noam Tibon, and the head of the Civilian Administration, Brig. Gen. Yoav ("Poli") Mordechai, met with the heads of the PA "security" apparatuses in Judea and Samaria. PA sources said that the meeting dealt with arrangements for President Bush's visit to the PA Thursday. The meeting between the Israeli and PA officials...

Published: 01/08/08, 10:49 PM Olmert, Abbas Agree to Negotiate Over Jerusalem by Gil Ronen (IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas agreed Tuesday to begin negotiations over the three "core issues" on which Israel is expected to make concessions: the division of Jerusalem, a return to pre-1967 borders and an influx of Arabs into pre-1967 Israel. Despite this, neither Yisrael Beiteinu nor Shas said they would leave the coalition. Yisrael Beiteinu chief Avigdor Lieberman's "close associates" told the press that he did not intend to create a political crisis at this time, and Shas hinted that a...