Israel and Palestine - Abbas Backtracks on 'Right of Return' Statements--Tells Al-Hayyat He Was Expressing Personal View

Just two days after suggesting that he might give up on the so-called "right of return" for Palestinian refugees, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas backtracked Saturday, telling Al-Hayyat that he was only expressing his personal views.

As Ha'aretz reports: "What I said about Safed is my personal stance. It means nothing about giving up the right of return," he said. "No one would give up their right of return. But all those international formulas, especially that of 194, speak of a just and agreed-upon solution to the refugee issue, and 'agreed-upon' means on the part of Israel."

On Thursday, Abbas told Israel's Channel 2 that he envisioned two states for two peoples. "Palestine now for me is the ?67 borders," he said, "with East Jerusalem as its capital." He insisted that he has no territorial demands on Israel beyond this, and that he believes the "West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts are Israel."

Far more radical, however, was Abbas' statement that he does not believe in the Palestinians' "Right of Return" to pre-1967 Israel, something all Palestinian leaders have insisted on. "It?s my right to see it," Abbas said of his birthplace Safed in northern Israel, "but not to live there."

Abbas came under immediate attack from Palestinian radicals, including the prime minister of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

"It is not possible for any person," said Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, "regardless of who he is ? to give up a hand?s width of this Palestinian land, or to give up the right of return to our homes from which we were forced out."

Israel's prime minister said Abbas' contradictory statements only prove the necessity of direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. "Only through direct negotiations can we find out what his real position is,? [Binyamin] Netanyahu said. ?In general I can say that if Abbas is really serious and if he intends to advance the peace process, as far as I am concerned we can sit together immediately. Jerusalem and Ramallah are seven minutes apart, and I can resume negotiations today. I want to take this opportunity to call on Abbas, again, to immediately return to the negotiating table without preconditions because peace can only be achieved around a negotiating table, not with unilateral decisions at the U.N. General Assembly. Such moves will only push peace further away and instigate instability."

Source: http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com//index.php?article=77091

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