Former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon calls for Saudi-brokered peace talks with Palestinians

Ami Ayalon, a former head of the General Security Agency, or Shin Bet, and a major general in the reserves and ex-chief of the Israeli Navy, calls for Saudi-brokered talks with Palestinian officials on the future of the Gaza Strip.

Ayalon, also a former politician for Labor, says this scenario would “not mean surrender, as it’s the only way to preserve a Jewish democratic Israel,” in a speech he delivers in Haifa at an anti-government rally Saturday night.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has made a disastrous decision not even to debate or consider the day after” the current war with Hamas in Gaza,” says Ayalon at Horev Center, a mountaintop area in the city’s south. “Without a diplomatic goal, the fighting is endless and pointless,” he adds.

Thousands of people attend the rally in Haifa, in which police close a main traffic artery connecting Horev to the Carmel Center area to allow demonstrators to march.

Addressing Netanyahu, Ayalon says the protest movement will “find you wherever you are, at your residences in Caesarea and Jerusalem, at your vacation destinations and in meeting with the world leaders who will still tolerate your presence.”