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“Abbas Says U.S. Agreed to 'Palestine' Along '67 Borders'”
by Arutz Sheva   
August 29th, 2014
John Kerry, Mahmoud Abbas
John Kerry, Mahmoud Abbas
Flash 90

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was quoted in Palestinian Arab news sources as claiming that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed to a Palestinian state on the 1949 Armistice lines - apparently Abbas actually said that the US, not Netanyahu, had made that agreement.

Abbas's actual statements from the recent interview were that the US expressed its support for establishing a Palestinian state along the "1967 borders," adding that all that was left was to sketch up the final border lines, reports Walla!.

Netanyahu hurried to deny the reports that he had made the agreement, and likewise denied reports in a Jordanian daily that Netanyahu and Abbas met in Amman last week.

In the interview, Abbas added that PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and intelligence chief Majid Farraj will meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry next week, where they will discuss the question of whether "there is or isn't a solution" to the conflict with Israel.

The report comes after Abbas recently declared he would unilaterally ask the UN to set a deadline for Israel to withdraw to the 1949 Armistice lines, a move the US has opposed.

The clarification that the US agreed to establishing "Palestine" along the "1967 borders" in fact does not signify such a major change of rhetoric from US President Barack Obama's administration.

Back in 2011, Obama said in a speech "we believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps." In that same speech, he said "Palestinians...(have been) suffering the humiliation of occupation."

Contrasting with Obama's appraisal, a recently declassified document from the heads of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1967 shortly after the Six Day War, which was obtained by analyst Mark Langfan for Arutz Sheva, specified that for strategic reasons Israel can not afford to withdraw from Judea and Samaria even under the much more limited military realities of that time.

Hamas "shouldn't go to war alone"

In a recent interview, Abbas also spoke about Operation Protective Edge, which began on July 8 in response to Hamas launching a terror war by escalating its rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli civilian centers.

"No faction should go to war (alone)," said Abbas, slamming Hamas's unilateral action. "The decision on war and peace isn't in the hands of Hamas alone, but rather in the hands of the Palestinian leadership."

"If Hamas wants to decide on war, it will deal with it alone," added the PA chairman.

Showing signs of increased tension with Hamas, with whom Abbas signed a unity agreement in April torpedoing the peace talks, Abbas added that the Gaza based group has a "shadow government." He noted "if this continues, it will threaten the national unity," and likewise decried Hamas's recent execution of "collaborators with Israel" as being a "crime."

Abbas's comments come after a message was released last Wednesday by jailed arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti, a member of Abbas's Fatah faction who polls in May found was favored for unity government president by Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

In the message, Barghouti called for Fatah to go through a revolution and reject negotiations for "resistence," as well as tightening unity with Hamas.

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