Jordan's King Abdullah II advised Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas to reconsider the Palestinian statehood bid, Saudi Arabian
newspaper
Al-Madina reported Tuesday.
King Abdullah, after consulting with a team of international lawyers,
explained to Abbas that declaring a state in Palestine would possibly
result in the loss of the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees,
according to the report. He therefore asked him to reconsider his plan
to bring statehood to a vote at the United Nations on September 20.
RELATED:
Israeli efforts move to influencing wording of PA state bid
Opinion: There's no right of returnLandau: If PA goes to UN, declare all agreements nullAbbas however, planned to move forward with his move, nonetheless, the report said.
The Palestinians will continue to demand the right of return for millions of
refugees to their original homes inside Israel even after the UN recognizes a
Palestinian state along the June 4, 1967, lines, Abbas said on Sunday.
Responding to legal experts’ claims that a
Palestinian state could affect the status of the PLO as the “sole
legitimate
representative” of the Palestinians, Abbas told the Jordanian newspaper
Ad-Dustour: “The PLO
represents all the Palestinians, not only those in the
Palestinian territories and whose number is estimated at 4 million. The
PLO
represents all 8 million Palestinians in the world.”
He said that the PLO
would continue to function until all Palestinian issues were resolved,
including
the case of the refugees. The PA, he added, is part of the PLO and not a
separate body.
Abbas claimed that there were 5
million
refugees.
“This case must be placed at the
negotiating table and the
difference between us and the Israelis is they don’t want to talk about
this
issue,” he said.
“We have told them that this
issue must be discussed on
the basis of international legitimacy.”
A British
expert in international
law has warned that millions of Palestinian refugees living outside the
West
Bank and the Gaza Strip could lose their representation at the UN if the
PA
succeeds in winning recognition of a state next month.
A seven-page legal
opinion prepared by Guy Goodwin- Gill, a professor of international law
at
Oxford, concluded that “the interests of the Palestinian people are at
risk of
prejudice and fragmentation” and the refugees in the diaspora risk
losing “their
entitlement to equal representation... their ability to vocalize their
views, to
participate in matters of national governance, including the formation
and
political identity of the state, and to exercise the right of
return.”
The PLO has had observer status at the
UN since
1974. Goodwin-Gill suggested that this status would be transferred to
the
state of Palestine in September.
Abbas told the
newspaper that he decided
to launch the statehood initiative after the peace talks with Israel
reached a
deadlock. He said that the PA would return to the negotiating table only
if
Israel halted construction in the settlements and accepted the 1967
lines as the
basis for a two-state solution.
Abbas said that
122 countries have voiced
support for the statehood bid. He expected the number to rise to 128 by
the time
the Palestinians go to the UN in late September.
Asked whether the PA leadership has come under
pressure from the US administration to abandon the statehood plan, Abbas
replied: “Yes, there’s a stick, but without a carrot. Indeed, we are
under
pressure not to go [to the UN]. The pressure is also on other countries.
But in
the end we want to follow the higher interest of the Palestinians.
True,
we don’t want a clash with America, because we’re not qualified for such
a
confrontation.”
He pointed out that Congress has
threatened to cut off
aid to the Palestinians if they insist on going to the UN Security
Council or
General Assembly.
Abbas noted that the US was
giving the Palestinians
more than $570 million in annual aid while the Arab countries were
failing to
fulfill their financial pledges.
Acknowledging
that the situation on the
ground would not change for the Palestinians when and if a Palestinian
state is
declared, the PA president explained: “First, there will be a state
under
occupation. The Israelis these days deal with us on the basis that we
are not a
state and that the Palestinian lands are disputed territories. But when
the
recognition of our state on the 1967 borders happens, we will become a
state
under occupation, and then we would be able to go to the UN [with
demands]. We
will remain under occupation, but our legal status will change.”
Abbas
said he was strongly opposed to an armed intifada against Israel.
“As
long as I’m the president of the Palestinian Authority, I won’t agree to
an
armed intifada,” he said. “I believe there’s a semi-consensus on the
need for
calm. All the Palestinian factions know what the repercussions of armed
action
would be. However, I support peaceful demonstrations and popular
activities in
every place in Palestine.”
