RAMALLAH (PIC)– Secretary-general of the Palestinian national initiative Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi strongly denounced the latest remarks made by Israel foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman about the Gaza Strip in which he declared intents to turn the Strip into an entirely independent entity separated from the occupied Palestinian lands.
In a press statement on Saturday Dr. Barghouthi described these remarks as very dangerous and aimed at perpetuating the internal division between Gaza and the West Bank and annexing the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem to Israel.
He underlined that Lieberman’s remarks reflected Israel’s attempt to get rid of the Palestinian demographic weight through separating the densely-populated Gaza whose total area is only 1.3 percent of historical Palestine from the rest of the occupied Palestinian lands especially after the Palestinian population living in the occupied territories except Gaza became equal to the number of Israeli settlers.
The head of the national initiative pointed out that Lieberman’s plan revealed Israel’s true intentions aimed to wipe out the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and an independent state.
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper had reported on Lieberman’s plan to turn Gaza into an independent entity and annex the rest of the West Bank and Jerusalem to Israel.
Lieberman expressed his rejection of making further concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) which governs the West Bank’s Palestinians.
For its pat the Islamic Jihad Movement said that Lieberman’s plan is devious and misleading and aimed at portraying to the world that Israel wants to end its occupation of the Palestinian lands.
Islamic Jihad official Khader Habib told the Al-Quds satellite channel on Saturday that Gaza has no Talmudic or biblical importance in the Zionist doctrine but the West Bank and Jerusalem is considered the backbone of the Zionist project.
Habib added that Israel intends through such plan to devour the remaining Palestinian lands in the West Bank and Jerusalem and complete its settlement and Judaization plans without any restrictions.
In a related context the Haaretz newspaper revealed a general trend in many Israeli political circles calling for renouncing the two-state solution and declaring the establishment of a Jewish state on all Palestinian lands in exchange for granting the Palestinians Israeli IDs as a minority subject to the Israeli law.
The newspaper quoted on Saturday former Israeli foreign minister Moshe Arens as saying that Israel should control the whole West Bank and grant the Palestinians the Israeli citizenship as long as the negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas are of no use.
“The prospects of the negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas do not look promising. President Obama undoubtedly thinks otherwise but if Abbas speaks for anyone it’s barely half the Palestinians. The chances of anything good coming of this are not great” Arens said.
“Another possibility is Jordan. If Jordan were ready to absorb both more territories and more people things would be much easier and more natural. But Jordan does not agree to this. Therefore I say that we can look at another option: for Israel to apply its law to Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and grant citizenship to 1.5 million Palestinians” he added
According to Haaretz the idea of granting the Palestinians the Israeli citizenship was also advocated by prominent Israeli figures such as Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin lawmaker Tzipi Hotovely and former head of Yesha council of settlements Uri Elitzur.
