"After all the attempts to come to a deal by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, like the Geneva Accords and others which were total failures, it has become clear that there is no one to speak to on the other side.
MK Uri Ariel (National Union) said Sunday that he was "unimpressed" with threats by the Palestinian Authority to declare unilateral statehood. Ariel said that the threat was "empty and meaningless", but the Palestinian Authority tends to try it out every few years – although essentially it has no substance. "Their bark is worse than their bite," Ariel said, joining other Israeli officials who said that they were not taking the PA's threat seriously.
According to Ariel, the threat by PA officials is empty because they are not to be satisfied with the limited state they will be able to establish; if they do establish a state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, they will no longer be able to have any claims on Israel, something they are not willing to do.
"This declaration is for public consumption alone," Ariel said. "After all the attempts to come to a deal by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, like the Geneva Accords and others which were total failures, it has become clear that there is no one to speak to on the other side. There is no one to make a deal with, and nothing to make a deal over, because this land is ours, and the PA's threats are just that," Ariel said. Ariel added that the PA's threats impressed Israeli,swho like to frighten themselves – but they impressed no one else.