Gabbay Says He Wouldn’t Evacuate Jewish Communities in Yehudah and Shomron

Zionist Camp leader Avi Gabbay has said that if elected prime minister, he would not agree to dismantle Jewish communities in Yehudah and Shomron.

“I will not evacuate settlements as part of an agreement with the Palestinians,” Gabbay told Channel 2 on Monday evening.

Signing a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority would not necessarily entail uprooting Jewish residents; it was not automatic, he said.

“If you make a peace deal, solutions can be found that do not necessitate evacuations,” Gabbay said. “If a peace deal is made, why do we need to evacuate? I think the dynamic or the terminology that we have become accustomed to, that if you make a peace deal you evacuate, is not actually true.”

Gabbay’s tack to the right, presumably with an eye to facing off against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the next election campaign, was viewed with alarm by some in the center-left. Zionist Camp MK Tzipi Livni reportedly sought to clarify Gabbay’s comments, saying that such views were his only, and did not represent the position of the party.

He argued that there is no contradiction between peace and security: “I meet a lot of statesmen and security officials who dealt with the negotiations with the Palestinians. I ask everyone the question: Is there a partner? Half of them say no and half of them say yes. Surprisingly, people with a security background say that there is.”