Some Key Takeaways from the Abbas Speech to Israeli Students

On Sunday, approximately 300 students from across Israel traveled to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The meeting was arranged by Labor MK Hilik Bar. Abbas spoke at length, in both prepared remarks and during a question and answer session. Below are some highlights:

• On dividing Jerusalem

Just last month, Abbas stated that without East Jerusalem as its capital, there will be no peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. At this week’s meeting, he maintained that the Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as their capital, but claimed that they do not aim to divide the city, rather to allow it to serve as a “united capital of two states.”

We don’t want to redivide Jerusalem. We would leave the city open, and have two municipalities with one governing body above them. This is the meaning of coexistence.

• On the Right of Return

Abbas was born in Sfat in 1935. His family fled the war in 1948. As recently as a month ago, Abbas claimed that he could not negotiate away the Palestinian right of return.  But he has also said in the past that when he speaks of the right of return, it is not necessarily to a home lost in Israel, but to a future Palestinian state. There can be many gradations of a right of return, most significantly depending on whether you count refugees who fled during the war of 1948 itself, or also include those refugees’ descendants (the latter constituting millions of additional people). On Sunday, Abbas stated he “did not want to flood Israel with millions of Palestinian refugees.”

We do not seek, and we will not seek, to flood Israel with millions in order to change its social culture. This is nonsense that you read in the Hebrew media and elsewhere.

The Israeli propaganda that I intend to flood Israel with five million refugees is nonsense. We don’t want to change the demographics in Israel.

• On Water Rights

Earlier this week, the European Parliament President Martin Schulz addressed the Knesset.  He spoke about the European Union’s commitment to the Jewish people’s right to live in peace and security and reaffirmed that they have no plans to join in with boycotts against Israel. He went so far as to state, “The European Union will always stand at Israel’s side.” Yet all of his comments on friendship did not prevent a group of Jewish Home MKs from heckling Shulz and ultimately walking out of the speech altogether. He spoke about water allocation in a way that they found offensive. While admitting that he did not have the exact numbers, he explained that he was disturbed by the disparity in water allocation between Israelis and Palestinians. He repeated a statistic that he had heard: Israelis use around 70 liters of water per day while Palestinians receive only 17 liters. Friends of the Earth Middle East, a regional NGO, fact-checked the assertion, explaining that Israelis actually consume about 250 liters per day and Palestinians about 70. At his meeting, Abbas claimed the difference to be much larger, with Israelis being permitted to consume 12 times more water than Palestinians.

We are humans, you need to take a shower, I need to take a shower. You need to drink, I need to drink. We are similar, why do you take 12 times more?

• On Holocaust Denial

Abbas rejected the long-standing claim that he had denied the Holocaust in his doctorate, referring to the idea as a rumor spread by his opponents.

How do I deny the Holocaust? Did you read the book? No. So read the book and see if I have denied the Holocaust. I have written about it and I know that millions of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

• On Palestinian Incitement

Abbas was open regarding anti-Israel incitement within Palestinian society and admitted that it needed to be confronted. He expressed frustrations with Israel for being unwilling to discuss the issue in a trilateral committee, along with the Americans, something which he argued the Palestinians have long been calling for.

Incitement is a germ that would harm the atmosphere and the desire for peace, so let’s remove it. We want to remove it but we haven’t heard any response.

• On his own views regarding Jews

Last week, Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz called Abbas the world’s most anti-Semitic leader. Without mentioning Steinitz by name, Abbas responded.

Not the second or third worst, but the worst anti-Semite. Why? What am I saying? I recognize the state of Israel. Where is the anti-Semitism? I go everywhere around the world. Wherever I go, I meet the Jewish leadership, in New York, AIPAC, Washington DC, London, Paris, South Africa, Latin America, Canada, everywhere. We want to make peace with you, so we meet with everyone. A person who says this about me, frankly, does not want peace.

• On Settlers and Settlement Expansion

Abbas expressed frustration with the settlement movement, specifically their Price Tag Policy, and Israel’s response to it.

It’s a big shame on you, what settlers do against us; without any reasons they come and kill, uproot trees. The slaughter us, they kill my sheep and my livestock. It’s a shame on you. And by the way, every time we take one step toward peace it takes us back 20 steps, because our people wonder, what is peace with these people?

When you say, ‘This is my land,’ where do you want me to build my state? When I sleep, I’m afraid to wake up and see an outpost here in the presidential compound.

• On Recognition of Israel

While Abbas continued to reject calls to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, he reiterated his recognition of Israel’s right to exist and a willingness to sign a peace agreement with Israel.

There is no other solution in this region except peace. I received more than one indication from Hamas that they would stand behind me in case of a peace agreement.

If peace does not happen at the end of this nine months, we are not going to go back to violence, but put yourself in our shoes and tell us what to do.

Of course what Abbas says in English is not always completely in line with what he says in Arabic. But going on-the-record with hundreds of Israelis, in his own office, gives a lot of credence to this week’s remarks. Coming out publically on such issues as Holocaust denial and Palestinian society’s issues regarding incitement of violence are strong statements that will certainly start conversations at home. Already Hamas has blasted Abbas simply for having the meeting. They claim that it normalizes relations with Israel. To listen to Abbas’ remarks, that may have been part of the point.

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