Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon reacted Sunday to the statement by a senior Fatah man that exposes the organization’s plan to destroy Israel in stages, while pretending to seek a peaceful compromise. 

“As I have said on many occasions,” said Ayalon, “here is further proof that the conflict is not about territory. The Palestinians have been offered a state repeatedly for several decades and have rejected each and every offer. This is less about the creation of a Palestinian state than it is about the destruction of the one Jewish State.”

The statement by Abbas Zaki, a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee led by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, is one of the most damning statements ever made by an Arab official regarding Fatah’s “stages plan.” The interview was aired on Al Jazeera on September 23, at about the same time that Abbas was presenting the case for independent statehood in the United Nations.

Possibly the hype around Abbas’s speech gave Zaki confidence that his statement would go by unnoticed – as it largely has.

“If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall, what will become of Israel? It will come to an end,” Zaki predicted.

“Don’t say these things to the world,” he warned. “Keep it to yourself.”