PA: Settlements 'threatening to blow up region'

Abbas on Land Day anniversary: Israeli policies in W. Bank, J'lem "undermine" peace process, 2-state solution.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas 370 (R) (photo credit: Luis Galdamez / Reuters)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas 370 (R)
(photo credit: Luis Galdamez / Reuters)
The Palestinian Authority warned Saturday that settlement construction, the security barrier and settler violence were a “mine threatening to blow up the whole region.”
The warning was included in a statement issued by the office of PA President Mahmoud Abbas on the 37th anniversary of “Land Day.”
The PA said that the stalemate in the peace process would undermine the prospects of achieving a two-state solution and would “push, sooner or later, to an all-out explosion.” Calling on the international community to intervene to salvage United Nations resolutions concerning the Middle East conflict, the PA said it would not hesitate to go to international agencies to stop Israel from pursuing its policies in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Marking the same occasion, the PLO leadership called on Palestinians to step up “popular resistance against settlements and the Judaization of Jerusalem.”
Zakariya al-Agha, a senior PLO official, accused the Israeli government of pursuing “racist schemes aimed at expelling the Palestinians and confiscating their lands.”
An Israeli official said in response, “to speak of the Judaization of Jerusalem is of course an oxymoron. Jerusalem has been the Jewish people’s capital for thousands of years.”
The official said that the best way for the Palestinians to achieve a two state solution was sit down and negotiate with Israel.
“It would be much more constructive if the Palestinian side chose the language of dialogue and reconciliation instead of this language of conflict,” the official said.
“In articulating this language of confrontation the Palestinian leadership is doing no favor to the Palestinian people, who could gain so much from peace and reconciliation,” the official said.
“This path of conflict offers the Palestinian people nothing but a dead end,” the official added.
Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.