Abbas to Israeli students: Through "mutual understanding" we must come to a solution on refugee problem
Extract from PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech to Israeli students:
"On the refugee issue: there has been propaganda maintaining that Mahmoud Abbas wants to return five million refugees to Israel in order to destroy the State of Israel. No such statement was ever made. All we said was, ‘let’s put the refugee issue on the table,’ because this is a sensitive problem that must be solved in order to put an end to the conflict and for the refugees to be satisfied with the peace agreement, but we aren’t striving or acting to inundate Israel with millions [of refugees] in order to change its demographic makeup. This is nonsense, and the statements made in the Israeli media are false.
Let’s at least put the problem on the table in order to find creative solutions to it. When the Arab Peace Initiative was presented in Beirut in 2002… it stated that the Arab and Islamic countries would normalize their relations with Israel if it would withdraw from the occupied territories, and [spoke of] a fair and accepted solution to the refugee problem. The solution will be achieved through mutual understanding and in agreement with the Israelis. When we say a fair and accepted solution, we mean that no side will force a solution on the other.”
From WAFA, official PA news agency
"On the refugee issue: there has been propaganda maintaining that Mahmoud Abbas wants to return five million refugees to Israel in order to destroy the State of Israel. No such statement was ever made. All we said was, ‘let’s put the refugee issue on the table,’ because this is a sensitive problem that must be solved in order to put an end to the conflict and for the refugees to be satisfied with the peace agreement, but we aren’t striving or acting to inundate Israel with millions [of refugees] in order to change its demographic makeup. This is nonsense, and the statements made in the Israeli media are false.
Let’s at least put the problem on the table in order to find creative solutions to it. When the Arab Peace Initiative was presented in Beirut in 2002… it stated that the Arab and Islamic countries would normalize their relations with Israel if it would withdraw from the occupied territories, and [spoke of] a fair and accepted solution to the refugee problem. The solution will be achieved through mutual understanding and in agreement with the Israelis. When we say a fair and accepted solution, we mean that no side will force a solution on the other.”
From WAFA, official PA news agency