Abbas rejects violence while calling for “peaceful popular uprising”

Headline: President Abbas praises Germany's support for lasting peace in Middle East

BERLIN, Tuesday, August 16, 2022 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas praised today Germany's stances in support of achieving a just and lasting peace in the Middle East based on the two-state solution and international legitimacy resolutions.

President Abbas made the remarks during a joint press conference with Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz in the German capital, Berlin.

He also valued Germany's continued support to the Palestinian people to build their capacities and national institutions as well as its support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), stressing the importance of continuing the work of the joint ministerial committee between the two countries.

The President also stressed the pivotal role played by Germany in the Middle East region and the world, as well as within the European Union and its role in the meetings of the "Munich Format", which includes Germany, France, Egypt, and Jordan, to push forward the peace efforts in the region.

President Abbas, in this regard, expressed readiness to work with all relevant partners to achieve this goal.

He also addressed the Palestinian efforts to protect the two-state solution from collapse, in preparation for a political horizon to end the Israeli occupation of the lands of the State of Palestine occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as a capital, in addition to efforts exerted to achieve a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.

President Abbas affirmed that achieving these goals requires stopping unilateral actions that violate international law and signed agreements, stopping Israeli settlements, settler violence, killings, demolition of homes and facilities in the occupied Palestinian lands, and putting an end to attacks on the Palestinian people in East Jerusalem as well as Christian and Islamic holy sites.

He also stressed adherence to peaceful popular resistance and rejection of violence and terrorism anywhere in the world.

The terms "peaceful uprising/resistance,” and “popular uprising/resistance" are used by PA leaders at times to refer to peaceful protest and at times to refer to deadly terror attacks and terror waves. For example, ‎Mahmoud Abbas defined as “peaceful popular” the murderous terror during the 2015-2016 ‎terror wave (“The Knife Intifada”), in which 40 people were killed (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans and 1 Eritrean) and hundreds wounded in stabbings, shootings, and car ramming attacks. Abbas said: "We want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is." https://palwatch.org/page/9276