Hamas looks to be capitalizing on growing Palestinian anger toward Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas today, lashing him for yesterday’s comments given on Israeli Channel 2, in which he appeared to disavow in part the right of return, a key Palestinian issue.
The “right of return” refers to the issue of Palestinians expelled from their home cities and whether they will ever be allowed to return. Yesterday Abbas insisted territorial claims extend only to the pre-1967 border, and disavowed claims for a right of return to cities outside those boundaries.
During Israel’s 1948 war of independence, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes, fleeing en masse to neighboring areas. An annual day to commemorate the expulsion is held among Palestinians called al-Nakba Day, though its commemoration is officially banned in Israel.
This remains an issue because while large numbers of these people fled to Gaza and the West Bank, others fled elsewhere, and many remain, generations later, in refugee camps in nations like Lebanon and Syria, assuming they will be allowed to return to home villages long since destroyed.
Abbas’ position, which stakes out Gaza and the West Bank as Palestine and gives up on territorial claims inside Israel, is likely to alienate a lot of Palestinians, particularly those living in refugee camps to this day. He seemed to be counting on this as a conciliatory move toward Israel, but with Israel’s political leadership’s own split being between disavowing the right of return and disavowing the existence of Palestinians in general, it may not ring as such to them.
This man has always been a sellout.He never had the guts of Arafat and his "diplomatic" manners have been ways to hide the accomodation of the intersts of Israel and the US.
Trying to defer to Israel will not work. Israel already has the upper hand, with the help of F/UK/US and the whole "international community". If all the Palestinians could decide what is possible and worth fighting for, then gain support from the many already pro-palestinian people who are fair and want to help, Israel could be persuaded/made to behave decently, in its own interest as well. The paranoid fear Israelis retain could be overcome by some negotiations. The USA has the same atitude of not talking with "enemies", but it does not work.
Mahmoud Abbas denies that he has given up on Palestinian right of return
"What I said about Safed is my personal stance. It means nothing about
giving up the right of return," he said, claiming the Israeli news network
had deliberately edited his statement to misrepresent him.
Palestinian officials claimed the phrasing was a linguistic slip by the
president who was interviewed in English rather than Arabic…
Dr Samir Awwad, a close ally of Mr Abbas and a leading political analyst at
Bir Zeit University, has insisted that the president made his explosive
statement clearly and deliberately.
***"Refugees should have a chance to return to the Palestinian homeland, which
now means West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. This is a commitment
Palestinians took upon themselves when the accepted the two state solution,"
Dr Awwad said. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middlee…