Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his opposition on
Wednesday to Israel’s plan to build in the area known as E1 between Jerusalem
and Ma’aleh Adumim.
Abbas said that the Palestinians considered the plan
a “red line” that should not be crossed.
Abbas’s remarks came during a
meeting he held in his office in Ramallah with Nigel Kim Darroch, the National
Security Adviser for the British government.
The British consul-general
in Jerusalem attended the meeting.
Abbas told the British diplomats that
the E1 plan would divide the West Bank into two parts and prevent geographical
continuity between Palestinian territories.
Abbas said that the plan
would also isolate east Jerusalem from its “Palestinian
surroundings.”
Reiterating his commitment to the two-state solution,
Abbas said that the PA remained committed to a just and comprehensive peace with
Israel.
Abbas, according to his aides, also briefed the British officials
on the latest developments in the West Bank in the aftermath of the death of
Arafat Jaradat, a 30-year-old Palestinian from the Hebron area, in Israeli
prison last weekend.
Abbas complained that the continued imprisonment of
Palestinians and settlement construction “jeopardized efforts to break the
current statement in the peace process.” Meanwhile, Abbas Zaki, a senior Fatah
official, called on Palestinians to take to the streets in the thousands to
block highways used by settlers in the West Bank.
Zaki said that the
Palestinians can no longer remain idle as “our sons are being executed in
Israeli prisons.”
He said, however, that Fatah was opposed to an armed
struggle against Israel at this stage because of the divisions among the
Palestinians and the preoccupation of the Arab countries with the Arab
Spring.
“We don’t want to be dragged to a square where Israel would be
the winner,” Zaki explained.
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