Abbas claims Israel spreads drugs among Palestinians

Excerpt of speech by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas at the opening of the international conference on corruption organized by the PA. This is the print edition of the speech and summaries of parts of it. In the live speech Abbas went off manuscript several times –Ed.

Headline: "The [PA] president: We are going to elections after all of the organizations have agreed"

"Corruption is hated everywhere in the world, but what is important is how we will fight it, if there is a will. Corruption and the war against it were mentioned in the Quran dozens of times, and also in Christian and Jewish religious law, as it cannot be that there be divine law that does not fight corruption.

Even among all of the divine religions, corruption is something that is fought against. We must fight it to the end, and therefore this conference of yours is being held. I hope that we will benefit from your experience, that we will benefit from the results we achieve, and that we will act according to them entirely without hesitation.

From our perspective, this topic is very important, critical, and crucial. We see drugs and other substances, and also spoiled things that always find fertile ground in our land [that come] from [Israel], as they want to fight our existence. They are fighting our human feeling; they want to fight against our future and do not want us to have a revival. However, I do not want to blame the occupation. This corruption exists among us too, and we must continue to fight it until the end, and it does not matter who stands behind it."