Quit Palestine, Abbas Bluntly Tells Israel
Hisham Abu Taha, Arab News
GAZA CITY, 12 November 2006 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas bluntly told Israel yesterday that the Jewish state would not live in peace and security unless it withdrew to its borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Abbas was addressing a crowd in Ramallah as Palestinians marked the second anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Abbas pledged to continue Arafat’s struggle for a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, and vowed not to concede a single foot of Palestinian land.
“Peace and security will not be realized under occupation and settlement and the inclusion of noble Jerusalem into Israel,” Abbas told the assembled crowd who held aloft the late leader’s portraits in the Muqatta headquarters, decked with Arafat posters and Palestinian flags. “Israel, if it wants peace, should apply international decisions and withdraw from Palestinian and Arab lands to the 1967 borders,” Abbas said.
Arafat was joint recipient with the late Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. But he was boycotted by Israel and the United States in his final years as an obstacle to peace. His death in 2004 fueled hopes for progress in the Middle East peace process, but the daily lives of Palestinians have grown only more desperate since then.
“During Abu Ammar’s (Arafat’s) time, we used to pass through difficult situations but life never seemed so insecure as now,” 55-year-old Hamde Keshta, a carpenter in Gaza, told Arab News. “The need of the hour is for Fatah and Hamas to form a unity government and end the suffering of our people,” he added.
Khan Younis grocery shop owner Jamal Khader, 34, said that Arafat did a lot for his people even while he was under Israeli siege at his Ramallah headquarters.
In his Ramallah address, Abbas said that a unity government with Hamas was likely by the month’s end.
“I say to our people that we have realized great progress on the road toward forming a national unity government that can break the siege and open the way for a political solution that will end the occupation for ever,” the president said.
GAZA CITY, 12 November 2006 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas bluntly told Israel yesterday that the Jewish state would not live in peace and security unless it withdrew to its borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Abbas was addressing a crowd in Ramallah as Palestinians marked the second anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Abbas pledged to continue Arafat’s struggle for a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, and vowed not to concede a single foot of Palestinian land.
“Peace and security will not be realized under occupation and settlement and the inclusion of noble Jerusalem into Israel,” Abbas told the assembled crowd who held aloft the late leader’s portraits in the Muqatta headquarters, decked with Arafat posters and Palestinian flags. “Israel, if it wants peace, should apply international decisions and withdraw from Palestinian and Arab lands to the 1967 borders,” Abbas said.
Arafat was joint recipient with the late Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. But he was boycotted by Israel and the United States in his final years as an obstacle to peace. His death in 2004 fueled hopes for progress in the Middle East peace process, but the daily lives of Palestinians have grown only more desperate since then.
“During Abu Ammar’s (Arafat’s) time, we used to pass through difficult situations but life never seemed so insecure as now,” 55-year-old Hamde Keshta, a carpenter in Gaza, told Arab News. “The need of the hour is for Fatah and Hamas to form a unity government and end the suffering of our people,” he added.
Khan Younis grocery shop owner Jamal Khader, 34, said that Arafat did a lot for his people even while he was under Israeli siege at his Ramallah headquarters.
In his Ramallah address, Abbas said that a unity government with Hamas was likely by the month’s end.
“I say to our people that we have realized great progress on the road toward forming a national unity government that can break the siege and open the way for a political solution that will end the occupation for ever,” the president said.
posted by HRM Deborah of Israel and the Messenger of Peace at 11:39 PM
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