JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli government minister predicted the collapse of the Palestinian Authority.
“The question is not if the PA collapses but when it is going to collapse,” Zeev Elkin, the minister of immigrant absorption and of Jerusalem affairs, said Monday in a speech at Bar-Ilan University. “It can happen in a month or two or a year or two tops.”
Elkin, of the Likud party, called the current wave of terror a “promo” for what will happen after the PA collapses.
“Israeli citizens will pay the price for anarchy in the PA, especially the settlements, and we must prepare for more difficult attacks,” he said.
Elkin reportedly said he took his warnings public after he tried to discuss the issue at Cabinet meetings with no success. He also said the PA has no system to choose a successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, and that “the most probable scenario is a violent succession struggle in the PA.”
“If the PA collapses, the world will blame Israel,” he said, and the international community of nations will withdraw financial support to the Palestinians.
“If we don’t prepare for the collapse of the PA, the reality will force itself on us and the cost will be dear,” Elkin warned.
