Diplomacy

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Palestinian Pres Abbas: Future Palestinian State to be Cleansed of All Israelis. Analysts: He Means “Jews”

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has been criticized in the past for declaring that a future Palestinian state would be cleansed of all Israelis. According to reports, including from Reuters, those criticisms have not taken hold:

“In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli – civilian or soldier – on our lands,” Abbas said in a briefing to mostly Egyptian journalists. “An international, multinational presence like in Sinai, Lebanon and Syria – we are with that,” he said, referring to United Nations peacekeeping operations in those places.

The comments have received a poor reception in Israel, with Israeli politicians “inferring Israel’s negotiating partner is anti-Semitic.” Observers commenting on Abbas’s rhetoric in the past have emphasized that by “Israeli” he means “Jews”:

“I’m willing to agree to a third party that would supervise the agreement, such as NATO forces, but I would not agree to having Jews among the NATO forces, or that there will live among us even a single Israeli on Palestinian land,” he was quoted by Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency…

The term “Israeli” used by Abbas means “Jew,” as the PA sees Israeli Arabs, Muslims and Christians alike as an integral part of the Palestinian people. The future State of Palestine, according Abbas, must resist any Jewish presence in its territory. In other words, the PA embraces a racist policy – Palestinian apartheid – directed at Jews, based on denial of Jewish history and the cultural and religious linkage of the Jewish people to the land.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on Monday began preliminary peace talks, after a series of Israeli concessions proved sufficient to bring the Palestinians back to the table. Abbas’s comments regarding evicting Israelis come in the aftermath of comments made by President Barack Obama calling on both sides to negotiate “in good faith.”

[Photo: Charlie Rose / YouTube]