[If Abbas won’t compromise on borders, Jerusalem and Jewish Israel, why is Netanyuahu still in negotiations. Abbas is sounding more and more like Hamas every day. This lends credence to Washington’s Limited Goal.]
In ‘Al-Quds’ interview, PA president says Palestinians won’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state, accuses Netanyahu of trying to “strip” Israeli-Arabs’ rights.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s talk about an “historic compromise” and said there would be no compromises on core issues such as Jerusalem and borders.
Abbas also reiterated his rejection of Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “We’re not talking about a Jewish state and we won’t talk about one,” Abbas said in an interview with the semi-official Al-Quds newspaper. “For us, there is the state of Israel and we won’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state.”
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Analysis: The PA’s mixed messages about peace talks
Abbas said that in recent meetings with leaders of the Jewish community in the US, he made it clear that the Palestinians would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “I told them that this is their business and that they are free to call themselves whatever they want,” Abbas said. “But [I told them] you can’t expect us to accept this.”
Abbas said that by raising the issue of Israel’s right to be a Jewish state, Netanyahu was seeking to “strip” Israeli-Arabs of their rights and turn them into illegal citizens. He said that Netanyahu’s goal was also to block any chance of Palestinian “refugees” from returning to their original homes inside Israel.
Asked about the possibility of dismantling the PA, Abbas said he did not rule out such an option if he reached the conclusion that the peace talks are hopeless. However, he stressed that this option was not on the table at present.
It’s incomprehensible that this blather should continue coming from Abbas. A poster on a different question had an idea: cut off all financial assistance to the PA, Hamas, all of them, and let them sink or swim on their own. As long as we continue to coddle the Arab Palestinians, no progress will be made, because it is soooo easy to be jerks on someone else’s money.
The script is unfolding like clockwork.
Abbas has just done Israel a huge favor. Now Bibi should use these statements as a way out of the negotiations and to resume building.
I agree with Abbas’ principle.
Israel should not compromise on its historic borders.
Toss the Arabs out.
All of them.
This shows that even in the best situation, a two-state solution would be like the partition of India. After India was partitioned between Muslims and Hindus, the Muslim state quickly chased out essentially all of the Hindus. Meanwhile, the Hindu state was saddled with a large unruly Muslim minority and also has to worry about terror attacks from the Muslim state.
In a realistic best case two-state scenario in Palestine, the same thing would happen. The Arabs would chase out all the Jews and get their own state, but the Jewish state would still have to deal with an unruly Arab minority as well as constant attacks from the Arab state.