Abbas condemns kidnapping, but blames Israel for using it "as an opportunity to sow havoc and destruction," refers to Israel as a "racist apartheid regime"
Official PA TV Live broadcast PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ speech at the opening of the 56th Congress for Ramallah natives in the US.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: “On the one hand, Israel doesn’t appear to be serious in its commitments to the international authorities and to the vision of a two-state solution along the 1967 borders, and in setting a date for ending the occupation.
In other words, a state that doesn’t want to determine its borders and doesn’t want to say when it will leave, and then talks about peace – I don’t know what the peace they are talking about means. On the other hand, [Israel] has evaded drawing the borders, apparently in its aspiration to continue the occupation and establish a single state with two regimes, and to keep the State of Palestine under the racist apartheid regime – to this we will not agree; we will not agree to this…
The important thing is that to this day, Israel refuses this [negotiations with the Palestinians] and insists that the National Reconciliation Government will not work [together] with it, and recently, the kidnapping of the children, the youths, or the three Israelis occurred, and Israel saw that as an opportunity to sow havoc and destruction in the land.
Therefore, everything you see here, and in all the districts, is in order to find them. OK, let’s hope they find them alive – for we are humane human beings, we do not shoot [people] in cold blood and we won’t accept the kidnapping and murder, or [even just] the kidnapping, of an innocent person – we won’t accept [it]. I’ve been told that one of them is American; I said, ‘OK, and if he’s American or Israeli? For us, everyone is a human being, we are searching for human beings’ – unfortunately, they don’t understand this.”
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: “On the one hand, Israel doesn’t appear to be serious in its commitments to the international authorities and to the vision of a two-state solution along the 1967 borders, and in setting a date for ending the occupation.
In other words, a state that doesn’t want to determine its borders and doesn’t want to say when it will leave, and then talks about peace – I don’t know what the peace they are talking about means. On the other hand, [Israel] has evaded drawing the borders, apparently in its aspiration to continue the occupation and establish a single state with two regimes, and to keep the State of Palestine under the racist apartheid regime – to this we will not agree; we will not agree to this…
The important thing is that to this day, Israel refuses this [negotiations with the Palestinians] and insists that the National Reconciliation Government will not work [together] with it, and recently, the kidnapping of the children, the youths, or the three Israelis occurred, and Israel saw that as an opportunity to sow havoc and destruction in the land.
Therefore, everything you see here, and in all the districts, is in order to find them. OK, let’s hope they find them alive – for we are humane human beings, we do not shoot [people] in cold blood and we won’t accept the kidnapping and murder, or [even just] the kidnapping, of an innocent person – we won’t accept [it]. I’ve been told that one of them is American; I said, ‘OK, and if he’s American or Israeli? For us, everyone is a human being, we are searching for human beings’ – unfortunately, they don’t understand this.”