GAZA (PIC)– Political advisor to the Palestinian premier Dr. Yousuf Rizqa called on the Arab peace initiative follow-up committee to revoke the authority given to Mahmoud Abbas to engage in talks with Israelis warning that Abbas makes grave concessions on the Palestinian rights and constants.
In a press statement on Wednesday Dr. Rizqa expressed his government’s rejection of the idea of exchanging Palestinian lands with Israel which is adopted by Abbas and urged the Arab committee to give the Palestinian resistance a chance to express the will of the Arab and Muslim nations in the region.
He also pointed to the fact that Abbas’s term of office had expired so he is not entitled anymore to represent the Palestinian people.
The Arab follow-up committee is supposed to convene this Thursday to discuss the outcome of the indirect talks conducted by Abbas’s authority with Israelis. Arab parties opposing Abbas’s talks with Israelis will attend the meeting.
A leaked official document had revealed that Abbas expressed his readiness during his last meeting with US envoy George Mitchell to reciprocally exchange lands by 1.9 percent with Israel.
According to this document Mitchell threatened Abbas to cut off financial support for his authority if he refused to talk directly to Israelis. The American administration also pressured Arab countries to give Abbas the go-ahead in this regard.
The Syrian newspaper Al-Watan said that Syria Lebanon Algeria Qatar and Sudan would reject to approve any decision to give Abbas the green light for his negotiations while the other countries would either give a yes vote or abstain from voting on the resolution according to the size of the American pressure.
In the same context noted Palestinian intellectuals activists lawyers and national figures strongly denounced Mahmoud Abbas for the remarks he made last month during his meeting with leaders of AIPAC the Zionist lobby in America in which he said he “cannot deny the Jews’ right to the land of Israel.”
This came in a signed letter addressed to Abbas and published on Wednesday by the Lebanese newspaper Al-Safir.
“It has never happened before that a Palestinian institution or leader accepted exclusively any Jewish right in Palestine for it is against the internationally recognized rights of the Palestinian people. These are our rights as a people and they are not your own property to dispose of them as you wish” the Palestinian figures told Abbas in their letter.
“We as Palestinians need a leadership elected democratically and legally responsible capable and committed to fulfill our national rights and our people’s aspirations for living in freedom dignity and just peace in the homeland of their ancestors” the letter underlined.
